Scattered
by RFLupin
Summary: Her name was Pippa Marie Fitzpatrick, and she was Bill Weasley's first love. BWOC, BWFD UPDATE: 4.9.07, EPILOGUE. COMPLETE
1. Photographs

**Title:** Scattered

**Author:** Lady Dissent

**Rating:** R

**Warnings:** Character death, bad language, thematic elements, typos and occasional writer's block

**Pairing:** Bill/OFC, Bill/Fleur (not at the same time, though. lol)

**Disclaimer:** I'm just funnin' ya! Damn near everything is JKR's.

**A/N:** This starts out sometime around the beginning of HBP, with Fleur and Bill being engaged. It then switches over to shortly after Bill leaves Hogwarts.

Also, go easy on me! This is my first HP fic, even though I write a lot of other things (mostly LOTR and original stuff). I'm not quite used to this fandom yet . . . :-)

It's named for the Green Day song on their Nimrod album that starts, "I've got some scattered pictures lying on my bedroom floor/reminds me of the times we've shared . . . "

Enjoy!

Chapter 1

Bill Weasley thought the floor was the largest shelf in his house.

Fleur Delacour thought _that_ was disgusting.

'Oh honestly!' Fleur cursed in French. She had been going to get Bill's leather jacket from his closet, and had just found a very sticky something else. Her mind spun with adjectives to describe what was now stuck to her bare foot, the kindest of which was "nauseating."

Quickly, Fleur found a shirt and wiped her foot off. She forced herself not to think about what it was she'd stepped in as she threw the now-soiled shirt into the hamper in the hall. Her search for Bill's jacket resumed, but was soon sidetracked by an open drawer of the nightstand.

Curious. She'd never seen this drawer open. She'd assumed it was broken, but had never asked. It hadn't seemed very important to know what was inside, not that she had ever cared.

Fleur dropped the pair of dirty jeans she'd just extracted from under the bed, and peered inside the drawer. Inside was a mix of seemingly worthless junk: a pile of pictures, a small velvet box, and a brown paper bag. She decided her walk with Bill could wait a minute while she examined this. Sitting on his bed, she picked up the scattered pile of pictures. Her eyes widened at what she saw.

These were Muggle pictures of another girl!

The foremost one was a slightly fuzzy Polaroid showing a skinny, brown haired girl wearing green pajama pants, a black shirt, and, to Fleur's horror, what looked like Bill's jacket! The girl didn't look very old. Maybe 17. She had obviously been taken by surprise, not expecting to have her picture taken. She wasn't wearing any make-up, and her hair was in a messy bun. It looked mousy and greasy, Fleur thought meanly. She turned the picture over, but couldn't decipher the curvy, messy handwriting on the back. Her lip curled viciously at the fading lipstick mark, though.

The rest of the pictures were of the same girl, but they were very different. They were all staged. The girl was always looking at the camera with a faraway look, while simultaneously managing a terrific pout. Her make-up and hair had obviously done with great care by someone professional. The background was foggy, and apparently not meant to detract from the girl.

Fleur thought she looked like a bit of a whore.

"What's taking you so long?" Bill called from the doorway. "Did you get lost?"

He walked nimbly through the muddle of clothes and junk to the bed and sat next to Fleur, wrapping his arms around her in an apologetic hug.

"Sorry about the . . . " he began with a quirky smile, but his voiced trailed away as he saw what she was holding; which drawer had been opened. Suddenly, his whole demeanor changed, and the smile fell from his face, replaced by a hard glare.

"What are you doing with that?" he demanded, and held his hand out expectantly.

"I would ask you ze same thing," Fleur said airily. She snatched the photos out of his reach.

"Give them to me," Bill ordered, reaching for them again. Fleur pulled them away further, and glared at him. "You don't know what those are," Bill said. "Give them to me. Now."

"No," Fleur said. "I know what zey are. Zey are pictures of some whore you were not going to tell me about."

Something mean flashed across Bill's face, and he grabbed Fleur by the shoulders and pulled her within an inch of his face, standing up quickly as he did so. He also managed to knock over the bedside lamp with a loud crash.

"She was not a whore," Bill breathed through gritted teeth.

"No?" Fleur began. She waved the glossy, staged shots in Bill's face. "Zen what are zees? Just photographs you 'appened to come across? And what is zis?" She shoved the lipstick-covered side of the messy photo in front of her. "'Ow do you explain zis?"

Bill snatched all the photos out of her hand and carefully put them back into the drawer.

"She was not a whore," he repeated, quieter this time. He sank onto his bed and the phrase became his mantra as he buried his head in his hands. Fleur didn't quite know what to do.

"What's going on up here?"

It was Bill's younger sister Ginny. She was standing in the doorway, peering in at her brother and his fiancée cautiously, as though she was expecting something disturbingly risqué. Once she saw it wasn't, though, she immediately braved her brother's messy room and ran over to him.

"What did you do to him?" Ginny barked accusingly at Fleur as she put a comforting arm around her brother.

"No-zing," Fleur said indignantly. "I simply asked 'im what zees were." She pointed to the still-open drawer and the photographs within. "Eet iz rude to keep secrets."

Ginny, however, didn't quite agree.

"Why were you looking through his things?" She demanded loudly. "You shouldn't do that!"

"Ginny," Bill said weakly. "Be quiet. She deserves an explanation."

"Oui!" Fleur said heartily. "That I do!"

Ginny pouted but nodded.

"She wasn't a whore," Bill said.

"I understand, oui," Fleur said, clearly annoyed, but then her face softened a little. "Wait, 'wasn't'? Don't you still see 'er?"

Bill was still and silent. His eyes, Fleur noticed, were glassy with unshed tears.

"Did she leave you?" Fleur asked quietly. Bill still didn't say anything.

"She died," Ginny finally said.

Fleur promptly felt like an ass. She sat beside Bill and put her arms around him.

"Oh Bill, I am sorry! I did not know zat-"

"Then you shouldn't have said anything," he said pointedly. His voice was hollow, though, and there was no tone to it. "You shouldn't have looked at them in the first place."

With that, he stuck his foot out and shoved the drawer closed with it, and then stood to leave. Ginny rose also. The two were nearly at the door when Fleur asked,

"What was she like?"

Ginny made to keep going, but Bill paused. He turned around slowly and looked thoughtfully at Fleur.

"She was smart, funny, and very passionate," he said quietly. Fleur nodded. Obviously, Bill had liked this dead girl. As he sat down next to her again, a small smile spread across his face. "She was also vain, short-tempered, and judgmental."

"Oh," Fleur said. "What was 'er name?"

There was a long silence. Bill sat with his eyes closed and hands clasped in his lap. Ginny watched her older brother as though fearful he might start crying again. Finally, Bill opened his eyes and gestured towards the nightstand.

"Ginny, get me her picture please," he said, and his sister leapt up to obey. To Fleur, he said, "Would you like to know about her?"

"I suppose I do not 'ave a choice, do I?" Fleur said quietly. Bill frowned at her, and she said quickly, "Oui, I would."

Ginny put the Polaroid in her brother's open hand, and he brought it closer to Fleur. She looked expectantly at him as he stared fondly at the old photo, a faraway look sneaking halfheartedly onto his face.

"Well?" Fleur prompted.

"Don't rush him!" Ginny barked. She didn't like Fleur very much, and knew that this was going to be excruciating for Bill. In fact, she really didn't think this was any of Fleur's business.

"Her name was Pippa Marie Fitzpatrick," Bill said slowly, pronouncing the words carefully and slowly, as though they were something beautiful that he wanted to hold on to forever. "And she was my first love."


	2. First Impressions

**Title:** Scattered

**Author:** Lady Dissent

**Disclaimer:** Just borrowing! I'll return everything to JKR in near perfect condition . . .

**A/N:** Time shift! lights and sound effects Now it's shortly after Bill's left Hogwarts, and will probably stay there for the rest of the story. According to the time lines at I'm going to say the latter end of 1989. Like around his birthday in November. (yeah, as opposed to the one he has in May . . . lol)

For other info on this (pairings, warnings, ect.) fic, please see the first chapter.

Enjoy, but watch out for typos!

Chapter 2

"Today is the first day of the rest of your life."

Someone had told Bill that the day he graduated from Hogwarts, obviously thinking it would encourage him to do something worthwhile with his time. Now, as he stood in front of his potential new home, a large grimy apartment building in a less than desirable area of town, it came back to him, and he couldn't help smirking.

Some life!

He took a deep breath and walked inside the large glass doors, noticing the obviously stubborn greasy fingerprints on the panes. The rest of the building was similar: dirty but livable.

Bill looked around for the front desk; there was none.

"Jolly good. Looks like I'll have to find the place by myself," he mumbled.

He checked the clipping he'd taken from the Daily Prophet that morning, even though he already had it memorized: "Apt. for rent. 1849 Hackney St, apt. 873. Send owl or drop by for interview." Bill hadn't been able to snag Errol, so he decided to "drop by", as the ad suggested.

There was a dingy placard on the wall to his left, so Bill decided to check it out. It read: "Apartments 101 to 199", and had an arrow pointing down the corridor. He walked down the hall, and found another placard: "Apartments 200 to 997" and another arrow pointing upwards. There were a set of metal doors to the right, and a button next to them. Bill pushed it to see what would happen.

Nothing did.

Then he noticed a piece of paper taped haphazardly to the metal doors.

"Elevator out of order. Please use stairs." An arrow directed him to the right and a wooden door.

Bill cursed under his breath. As far as he could tell, the apartment he was looking for was on the eighth floor.

He was certainly paying for the extra toast he'd had at breakfast that day.

By the sixth flight of stairs, Bill was beginning to wonder if this was worth it all.

Finally, he reached the eighth floor. It was just as dingy as the first, if not more so. The cleaning people probably didn't come up here that often, with the elevator being broken and all, Bill thought to himself.

The hallway went on for a good while, and Bill groaned inwardly at the thought of having to walk down it. Having been used to using magic to fetch things, he wasn't used to trekking up mountains to get to his house, or so it seemed, and he thought it might be rude to just pull out his wand and rip someone's house off the face of the earth . . . Nor did he think that was entirely possible anyway.

The door marked "873" was on the left about two-thirds of the way down the hall. He knocked quietly, trying not to wake any of the might-be neighbors. No one answered, so he tried again. Still nothing.

Bill cursed again. All that, and no one was home! He turned on his heel and was prepared to march away, but ran right into a woman who had just come down the hall.

"Sorry," he said, not sounding so at all.

"That's all right," the woman said. "Just get the hell away from my house."

Bill wondered if he'd heard right.

"Excuse me?" he asked, standing.

"You heard me," she said bossily, getting to her feet. She was a very thin but attractive woman, who didn't look any older than Bill. Her brown hair was pulled into an off-center ponytail over her shoulder, and a long tan coat covered most of what she was wearing. "I don't do private interviews, and my neighbors don't appreciate stalkers camping out in the hall."

"I . . . My name's Bill Weasley, and I'm here about the ad you put in the paper," Bill said, showing her the clipping he'd brought along. The woman stared at it for a minute, and then realized what he was talking about.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, smacking her head. "I'm so sorry! Here, please come in!"

She unlocked the door and showed him inside.

Bill was shocked. The interior wasn't at all what he had expected. Everything looked relatively new, and rather "modern". They had walked into a small hallway, the left wall of which was covered with framed pictures and posters; the right had a door leading to the kitchen. Up ahead, Bill could see what looked like a sitting room. It was here that he was shown to.

"It's a little messy, but you get the idea," the woman said, gesturing to the room while removing her jacket to reveal a dark red shirt and a short denim skirt. Underneath this, a pair of black footless tights accented her long legs that tapered into, oddly, black canvas sneakers with white socks.

The entire back wall of the apartment was one huge window, looking out onto a surprisingly pleasing cityscape- not the good part of town, of course, but impressive nonetheless. On his left there was a set of white steps the length of the wall that led to a room with a glass partition that ran nearly the entire length of the room. Curtains covered this, providing modesty and privacy, but Bill suspected in was where the bedroom was.

"It's very lovely, Mrs. . . . " Bill began, unsure of her name.

"Oh dear, Pippa Fitzpatrick!" she said, looking flustered. Pippa held out her hand for Bill, and he shook it gently. Her grip, though, was firmer than he expected from such a little thing. "And it's Miss. I'm not married." She seemed pleased about this.

"Would you like to see the rest of the place?" she asked. "It'll take 5 minutes, literally. And you won't even have to move."

"Sure," Bill said with a smile. "Why not."

"Well, this is the kitchen," Pippa turned and indicated behind them. Bill followed her finger and saw that the wall he'd thought was behind them didn't actually exist; it was merely a counter that separated the living area from the kitchen. Three stools sat in front of it.

Pippa turned again and continued,

"And here's the dining room." Beside the sitting area, which was using most of the main room's floor space, was a small nook filled with a circular wooden table surrounded by four matching chairs. A flowered centerpiece sat quaintly in the middle.

"Lastly, if you'll direct your attention to the left, you'll see the bedroom," Pippa concluded. Bill had been right; she was pointing at the glass wall. "The bathroom's in there, too, but they're both disgusting at the present, so they won't be included in our tour today."

Bill smirked.

"Well, that's it," Pippa said. Bill nodded.

"How much is the rent?" he asked delicately.

"Oh, about five hundred a month," she said, and then continued quickly after she saw Bill's look of astonishment. "That's half of what it actually is. I'm taking care of the other half."

Bill gave her another quizzical look, and she explained.

"I wanted a roommate. The price was too high for me to pay by myself, since my job's been slow lately." She was wringing her hands, though, as if she were nervous about something as she said this.

"Ah. What do you do, exactly?" Bill asked, hoping he wasn't about to share an apartment with a serial killer.

"Exactly?" she repeated, her smile returning. "I wear pretty clothes and get my picture taken . . . In technical terms, I'm a model."

"Lovely," Bill said, grinning cheekily. "I'll take it."

They both laughed.

"Really?" she asked, apparently not entirely sure if he had been serious.

"Yes," he said. "Seems nice enough, and the company is surely agreeable."

Pippa smirked and replied,

"Keep that up, and you're spending the night in the hall."

"Sorry," Bill said. "Well, how soon can I move in? Would in a about a week be okay?"

Pippa's face fell, and she began wringing her hand again. "I was hoping it could be sooner . . . Like, tonight, maybe."

"That seems sudden," Bill said. After all, neither of them knew each other too terribly well.

"Please?" Pippa asked. She looked so pitiful that Bill felt obligated to say yes.

"All right," he answered. "Do you have an owl I could use, at least? So I could tell my family where I am?"

"Sorry, I don't," she said. "You could just tell them later in person, though. I'll be gone tomorrow. You can go then."

Pippa was in the kitchen now, turning on the stove. A flame flickered to life underneath the burner as she turned to Bill and changed the subject by asking,

"Tea?"

"Yes," he said enthusiastically, feeling guilty but rather eager to erase the image of his worried mother from his mind. "I haven't eaten since this morning, and I got a work-out finding the place."

"What do you mean?" Pippa asked, pulling her wand out of a cleverly concealed hip pocket in her skirt. Bill had assumed that she was a witch, her advert being in the Daily Prophet and everything, but it occurred to him that this was the first time he'd seen her use her wand. She gave it a flick, and the kettle came down from the top of the fridge, and she placed it on the stovetop after filling it with water.

"Well, the sign in the lobby said the lift was broken, so I had to use the stairs."

Pippa laughed and said,

"The elevator's not broken!" Bill glared at her incredulously and informed her, that, yes, it was. Eight flights of stairs and the blister on his foot proved it was. She elaborated, "Well, then I guess the one in the lobby is, but the one out back is fine."

Bill scowled until the tea was ready, while Pippa chuckled at his expense.

"Figures," he said finally, sipping the hot beverage carefully. "After all, today is the first day of the rest of my life."


	3. Mr X

**Title:** Scattered

**Author:** Lady Dissent

**Disclaimer:** Just borrowing from the Great JKR

**A/N:** Not many right now.

Chapter 3

Bill got to spend the night on the couch that night, because Pippa claimed the bedroom. This wouldn't have been so bad, except for the fact that it was like sleeping on a block of steel-reinforced concrete.

It was two in the morning before he finally fell asleep.

"Get up!"

_Bloody hell, _Bill thought groggily. He'd only gone to sleep a few seconds ago, who could possibly be yelling at him to get up now?

"Come on, you ass!" the voice said. "It's almost noon!"

A burst of blazing sunlight hit him dead-on just as he opened his eyes, and Bill felt his pupils contract painfully as he sat bolt upright in surprise. He rubbed his eyes, and looked blearily in the direction of the angry voice.

It was Pippa, hands on her hips and glaring.

"Finally!" she barked, turning and walking into the kitchen. "I've been yelling at you for the past half hour!"

"Sorry," Bill mumbled, stumbling over his words slightly. "I'm a heavy sleeper."

"I don't care," she snapped as Bill approached to the counter. "I have a really important photo shoot today, and I'm running late because of you!"

Bill wanted to know how he could possibly have made her late, having been sound asleep until 20 seconds ago, but before he could ask, she was already complaining about something else. He decided to just let her go, hoping she'd run out of steam eventually.

"God, you're so annoying!" she yelled at him suddenly. "Aren't you going to say anything? Say something!" Bill remained quiet. He was finally taking his mother's advice: "If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all."

This angered Pippa further. She rolled her eyes and stormed off to the bedroom. When she emerged, pulling on her tan coat from yesterday, she began barking orders at him.

"If you're staying home, don't let anyone in the house. I don't want a bunch of crazy hobos and paparazzi tearing the place apart. If you make food, don't use the back left burner on the stove because you'll burn the building down if you do. And don't invite any of your loser friends over and mess the place up. If you do, I'll kick your ass out faster than you can say 'Scourgify'."

Now she was at the door, throwing her purse over her shoulder huffily as she said,

"I'll be back around three. Try not to be such an idiot."

She slammed the door as she went out, making the picture nearest the door tilt at a severe angle from the reverberations, and rattling the rest.

As Bill stared after her in disbelief, he wondered where the sweet girl from yesterday had gone.

He didn't have time to sit and ponder it, though. He hadn't been able to send an owl to his family last night, telling them that he'd be staying over at his new apartment, because Pippa didn't have one. Bill was sure that his mother was probably insane with worry by now, and figured that it would be nice to drop by and let everyone know that he'd found a place . . . And that he wasn't dead.

He also needed to get his clothes and such. Pippa was about one third his size, and he didn't really fancy pink lace. She also didn't seem to be in a "sharing" mood.

Bill had passed his Apparition test with flying colors, and so was soon strolling up the Burrow's front walk, mentally preparing himself for what he knew he was about to face: his very worried mother.

He'd hardly put one foot inside the door before he was suffocated by her mammoth hug.

"Oh God, Bill, where _were_ you?" Mrs. Weasley said, grasping her son firmly around the middle, and looking very careworn and frazzled. "I waited up all night for you, I was so worried! I thought you'd been kidnapped or hurt or killed!"

"I found an apartment, mum, and I'm fine," Bill began, trying to step away from her so that he could breathe normally again. "But the owner didn't have an owl I could use."

"And you didn't think to just pop over here and let me know?" she said testily. She was now getting past her anxiety, seeing that her precious baby boy was all right, and was moving right along into anger. "It would have taken you two seconds!"

This remark was punctuated by Bill getting hit on the arm a little harder than he thought necessary.

"I . . . I didn't think of that. Sorry, mum," he said, trying his best to sound sincere. His mother wasn't fooled.

"You could have died!" she screeched. Bill hardly thought so, and told his mother as much.

"You don't know what's out there, Bill! I was worried sick!"

Mrs. Weasley was getting hysterical now.

"Mum, I'm fine!" Bill insisted, moving across the kitchen hurriedly. "And I'm just here to get my things."

His mother stopped in mid-rant, and looked her son up and down.

"You mean you slept in your clothes?" she asked, sounding disgusted. Bill nodded. "What am I going to do with you?" she said with dismay.

"You could knock him upside the head," a voice from the door suggested. Bill and his mum looked around to see the second oldest Weasley brother, Charlie, leaning on the doorframe, a smirk plastered across his face. His mother wasn't pleased.

"This is no laughing matter," Mrs. Weasley said, waggling her finger menacingly at her younger son. "Your brother could have died! . . . Now go help him get his things together."

"Mum, my roommate's a scrawny model who's a quarter my size," Bill said disdainfully as he left the kitchen. "I think I can manage."

"You're living with a model?" Charlie asked, following Bill up the stairs, and sounding more interested than Bill thought he should.

"Yes," Bill replied curtly.

"Is she pretty?" Charlie pestered. They'd reached their room, and Bill began pulling his clothes out of the dresser and stuffing them into a bag he dug out from underneath his bed.

"She's a model, isn't she?" Bill said by way of an answer. Charlie wasn't appeased. "Yeah, I suppose she's nice looking," Bill said finally. He was still remembering Pippa's spat of extreme peevishness this morning, and it was affecting his perception of her.

"How nice looking?" Charlie demanded. He wasn't helping his brother at all.

"I don't know!" Bill snapped, waving a pair of dirty jeans in his brother's face before stuffing them into the bag. "Just nice looking . . . Why the hell do you care, anyway?"

"Just wondering," Charlie said in a would-be casual voice that might have fooled a two year old. Bill groaned and left the room, muttering to himself.

"Well mum, I'm going," Bill announced as he entered the kitchen, hoping to leave quickly enough to avoid a long, drawn-out, and embarrassing good-bye ceremony, as was the usual custom at the Weasley house.

Mrs. Weasley turned from cleaning the breakfast dishes and said,

"Wait, wait! You have to say good-bye to everyone first!"

Her words were like a magnet, pulling all the members of the Weasley family into the kitchen. Fred and George came thundering down the stairs, just managing to transform looks of guilt into angelic faces when their mother saw them. Percy followed slowly after, looking miffed about something. Charlie was already leaning on the doorframe, having followed Bill when he left the room, and was smirking very smugly. Lastly, Mr. Weasley came in from the sitting room, with Ron and Ginny trailing behind.

"Good morning, Bill," Mr. Weasley said. "Nice of you to drop by."

"Well, I try," Bill said, making an ineffectual gesture with his hands as he did so.

"I already spoke with him, Arthur," Mrs. Weasley said crossly.

"I see," Mr. Weasley said, looking reproachfully at his oldest son, who shrugged.

"I'll let you guys know next time," Bill said apologetically. "Really . . . Can I go now?" He was eager to leave. For some reason, he was suspecting that Pippa would explode at him if their apartment wasn't clean when she got back, and it hadn't been too tidy when he'd left.

"No, you may not go now!" Mrs. Weasley announced shrilly. "You have to say good bye to everyone first." She crossed the kitchen and pulled her son into a suffocating, bone-crushing hug, while Bill tried not to look annoyed. Mr. Weasley simply patted his oldest son on the back, which Bill appreciated greatly. He was sure his mother's hug had bruised him. He then turned to his siblings, and waved while saying,

"Good-bye!"

Mrs. Weasley looked annoyed, but this satisfied most of them. Percy nodded to his brother and stomped back upstairs. Fred and George followed after him quickly, after waving jovially to Bill and wishing him well. Ron shrugged and retreated to the living room. Charlie snorted, and was glared at by his mother before slumping off to the backyard.

Ginny was the only one who wasn't sufficed.

Bill was almost out the door when she caught him by the arm and tried to pull him back.

"Ginny, what the . . . ?" he began, but looked down and saw that she had started to cry.

"I don't want you to go!" she said tearfully, pulling him back harder. "I'm gonna miss you!"

Bill stopped and pulled her close, sitting down by the table as he did so. He sat his sister on his knee and said sympathetically,

"I'm not going very far. You can even come to visit me."

"But it won't be the same!" Ginny wailed.

"I know it won't," Bill said kindly, patting her back. "But things have to change, don't they?"

"I don't want them to," Ginny said stubbornly. "I want you to stay."

"And I'd like to," Bill told her, though it was only half true. He was eager to escape his five younger brothers' constant pranks, having to get up at the crack of dawn, and babysitting whenever his parents had to dash out at the last minute. He would, however, miss his cute little sister, and told her this sincerely. "You can write to me every day," he added.

"Really?" Ginny said hopefully.

"Really really," Bill answered, kissing the top of her head soothingly.

"Well, I guess that would be all right," Ginny said thoughtfully. She then hopped off her brother's leg and scampered away, calling over her shoulder, "Good-bye Bill! I'm going to write you a letter right now!"

Bill couldn't help chuckling. He stood and made for the door again, but was stopped this time by his mother, who threw her arms around him and made an odd, strangled, sobbing sort of noise.

"Mum!" he exclaimed irritably, trying to pry her off. He didn't know if any of siblings were still in the vicinity.

"I'm sorry Bill," his mother said tearfully, regaining composure quickly. "It's just, my little baby's all grown up!"

"Molly," her husband said firmly, putting his arm comfortingly around his wife. "I think our 'little baby' needs to go now."

"All . . . All right," Mrs. Weasley said thickly, wiping her eyes on her husband's robe. "But you remember to write, Bill. Do you hear me?"

"Yes mum, I hear you," Bill said dutifully. "Can I go now?"

His mother nodded, and Bill left as fast as he could. He was halfway down the lane, and just preparing to Apparate when Charlie appeared out of nowhere and stopped him.

"What now?" Bill snapped. He wasn't afraid to be short with Charlie, even though his younger brother could easily knock him out with one well-placed punch.

"How pretty did you say your roommate was?" he asked cheekily. Bill groaned and retorted,

"Too pretty for you."

Then, he Apparated before anyone could say another word to him.

Bill reappeared a few blocks down from the apartment building, behind a Muggle jewelry store. He figured he could use the walk anyway, and started on his way to his new home.

Remembering what Pippa had said about the elevator out back still being functional, he didn't use the front entrance this time, and was rewarded with not having to trudge up eight flights of stairs while hauling his luggage. When he reached the eighth floor, he let the bag drop and dragged it along behind him absentmindedly.

That was odd. It looked like there was someone waiting outside the apartment.

_Must be someone for Pippa,_ Bill thought. He hadn't told anyone besides his family that he where he was now living, and this was definitely not a relation of his.

The man was tall but broad, and was dressed in a very dark, formal suit. He had black hair that was parted in the middle but slicked down to either side of his head. He'd used so much hair gel that the top of his head seemed to shine, which Bill thought was amusing.

"Can I help you?" Bill asked when he reached the door, hoping it wasn't locked because he didn't have a key, and didn't know if this man was a Muggle or not. The man turned around and regarded Bill critically.

"Probably not," he said disdainfully in a low voice.

"Oh," Bill said awkwardly. "Well, could you move then? I'd like to get into my apartment."

The man seemed affronted by this at first, but then his face softened, and he said,

"So you're Miss Fitzpatrick's new roommate? She told me she'd finally found one."

"Yes," Bill said, wondering what else she'd told this man. She'd been in a right state this morning, so he suspected it hadn't been anything too pleasant.

Bill stared pointedly at the man, hoping he'd get the hint and move. He didn't.

"Could you give her this for me, then?" the man asked, handing Bill a folded slip of paper. "It's rather important."

"All right," Bill said, taking the paper and stuffing it in his jeans pocket. "Who should I say it's from?"

"Mr. X," the man said. Bill thought that was the stupidest name in the entire world, but didn't say as much. "Mr. X" looked as though he, like Charlie, could knock out Bill with a single hit.

"Right," Bill said. He was about to ask Mr. X to move again, but was cut off by a shrill voice coming from the other end of the hall.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

It was Pippa. She was charging down the corridor, looking livid as ever. Apparently, her photo shoot hadn't gone so well.

"I thought we went through this," Bill said to her. "I live here."

"Not you!" Pippa snapped at him. She turned to Mr. X and screeched, "You!" Mr. X simply smiled and said,

"Delivering a message."

"Yeah?" Pippa snorted. "We'll I've got one for you, too! Get the hell away from my house!"

Mr. X nodded and said slyly,

"As you please." He then strolled down the hallway and got in the elevator, waving politely as the doors closed.

Pippa groaned and then unlocked the door, stormed inside, and slammed it shut, right in Bill's face. He was mildly taken aback, but opened it and went in after her.

"Lock the door!" she barked at him. He obeyed.

Pippa was lying facedown on the couch, apparently after throwing herself there in a huff. She kicked her shoes off angrily, one of which narrowly missed Bill's inner thigh. She didn't even apologize.

"Well, you're pleasant," he said, sitting down in a chair beside the couch. He dropped his bag next to it lazily.

"Yeah, well, what are you going to do about it?" Pippa replied thickly. Her words were muffled by one of the pillows she'd shoved her face into. She propped herself and turned around to look at him. "Put your stuff away."

"And where do you propose I put it?" Bill asked. The floor seemed like a good place. It was, after all, the largest shelf in the house.

"In the dresser," she said, as though this was painfully obvious. "In there." She pointed vaguely to the bedroom. "I cleared out a few drawers for you last night."

"How kind," Bill said, trying not to sound sarcastic. He stood, grabbed his bag and slumped off towards the bedroom.

"Don't touch anything else," Pippa warned, stuffing her face back into the pillows. "I'll murder you if you do."

The bedroom was a lot messier than the rest of the apartment, but still much neater than Bill found comfortable. The dresser was on the right, the bed straight ahead, and there was a small bookcase and chair in the left hand corner. Bill stuffed his clothes into the bottom two drawers of the dresser, and then returned to the main room.

Pippa was still on the couch, looking as though she had passed out after a night of wild partying. Bill sat down again, rather unsure of what to do or say.

"Who was that?" he asked finally, referring to Mr. X.

"A corporate ass that I happen to work for," she said sharply.

"Oh," Bill said. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the now crumpled paper, and handed it to Pippa. "He asked me to give you this. Said it was important."

Pippa snatched it from him and rolled her eyes. She barely sat up to read it, and looked disgusted once she was done. Smashing it into a ball, she turned and threw it across the room.

"What did it say?" Bill asked.

"None of your god damn business!" she snapped irritably. "You're so damn nosy!" she added after an awkward silence. "Just leave me the hell alone, I'm going to bed!"

With that, she jumped off the couch and stomped up the half stairs to the bedroom, slamming the door so hard behind her Bill was afraid the glass would shatter.

"Sorry for asking," Bill said quietly to himself after she'd left, wondering what he'd done to become her current scapegoat.

He spent the rest of the evening looking through the books on the sitting room bookcase, which mildly amused him. Around five, he knocked on the bedroom door, which was glass just like the wall, and asked if Pippa if she wanted anything to eat. She yelled at him to him to "Leave her the hell alone," which Bill took to mean she wasn't hungry.

Bill whipped up something easy and ate it before stretching out on the couch, preparing himself for what he was sure was going to be another very bad night.


	4. Letters and Traces

**Title: **Scattered

**Author: **Lady Dissent

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, just borrowing, will return JKR's stuff eventually.

**A/N:** Bill Weasley is amazing! He should be a superhero . . . Also, updates will be fewer and further between than they have been, because I've got only one night off every week for the next month or two, which leaves very little time for writing anything, and I'm trying to concentrate on a few of my original stories more than my fanfic.

Chapter 4

Pippa didn't have to wake Bill up the next morning; he managed to do it himself, which was amazing. All summer, since he'd graduated from Hogwarts, he'd been sleeping in until late afternoon everyday, except yesterday. The fact that he succeeded at getting up at seven in the morning was quite astonishing, though the fact that the huge glass window was facing east might have had something to do with it.

He spent most of the morning lying on the couch, being what the Americans called "a bum", waiting for the inevitable moment when Pippa would wake up and break the sound barrier with her screeches and curses.

It never came.

Pippa came out of her room around 8:30, and far from being the roaring menace she was yesterday, she remained absolutely silent most of the morning.

Bill didn't quite know what to do about this. He was used to his brothers, who made it known when something was bothering them by either yelling, or a well-placed "accidental" jinx. (Sometimes, Bill had gotten both.) The people he'd lived with until now had had fairly predictable moods, with only the occasional unexplained spat of rage or peevishness. Pippa, though, was an entirely different story.

In the end, Bill decided to just go with it. He kept out of her way, and didn't say anything to her unless she had spoken to him directly. This seemed to work, because when she left around one o'clock, her good-bye consisted of a simple "see you later" instead of the vicious, personal insults of yesterday.

Since he still didn't have a job, Bill decided that a good morning activity would be to look through the want ads. Pippa got the Daily Prophet delivered every morning, and Bill found it sitting, unread, next to the teapot in the kitchen. He breezed through it while eating some toast, finding nothing of interest.

The rest of the morning was spent rooting through Pippa's bookcases. It proved to be an engaging endeavor. She had everything from non-fiction essays on the American Revolution to an entire shelf of smutty romance novels. All of the latter were battered, as though they had been through several thorough readings. Bill thought the two shelves devoted to clothing construction and historical costuming were very interesting, if not completely random. But the books that really caught and held his attention were the ones about Ancient Egypt. She didn't have too many of these, but the ones she had were so amazing that Bill had read three of them before he realized that it was nearly evening and that he was ravenously hungry.

He was halfway through a peanut butter sandwich when he heard something tapping on the huge glass window of the living room. Checking apprehensively, Bill found the source of the noise was his family's owl, Errol. He was scratching hard on the glass, eager to get inside. Bill quickly stuffed the rest of his sandwich in his mouth, and set himself to figuring out how the windows opened. It took him about five minutes, but was rewarded in the end with a letter from his sister Ginny. It read,

"Dear Bill,

How are you? I'm fine. When I started writing this, you'd just left. What are you doing now? Are you having fun? Do you miss me? I miss you.

Please write back soon!

Love your best-est sister ever,

Ginny 

P.S- After you left, Fred and George got in trouble for turning Percy's hair fuchsia and maroon. It was hilarious."

Bill snickered at the last part. It was something his brothers did every so often, and was a little bit sorry that he hadn't been there to see it. It had been a long time since anyone had gotten his hair dyed in such an impromptu manner.

Errol still hadn't left, and was looking at Bill reproachfully. Bill suspected that Ginny had told him to stay until Bill wrote back, and since he didn't know how Pippa felt about birds in the house, he decided it would be good to get Errol on his way sooner rather than later. After locating a pen and some paper, Bill settled down to answer his sister's letter.

After about half an hour, he had managed to scratch out a response that read:

"Ginny!

Too bad I missed the hair incident; I could really use a laugh right now.

Things are decent here. My roommate's a little crotchety, but what can you do? She can be nice, I suppose, and Charlie would probably pass out if her ever saw her . . . Tell him that if he asks about her.

Assure mum that I'm not dead, am doing fine, and am looking for a job. (Show her this letter if she needs proof.) I'll write back to you as soon as something worth mentioning happens. Stay well until then, and don't take crap from any of your brothers.

Your amazing brother,

Bill

P.S- Say 'hello' to everyone for me, too."

He was just tying the letter around Errol's leg when Pippa came home. She slumped through the hall and dumped her purse distractedly on the counter, then lazily kicked off her shoes. She didn't acknowledge Bill at all, until he walked to the window with Errol perched on his arm.

"What the hell is that?" she demanded, pointing accusingly at the bird.

"My family's owl, Errol," Bill replied, wrestling with the lock on the window. "My younger sister Ginny wrote me a letter, so-"

"I don't remember caring," Pippa snapped. "Just get it out of my house."

Bill wondered when the apartment had become exclusively hers, but he shrugged indifferently and turned his full attention back to the window. After a silent but furious ten second battle with the latch, her managed to crack the window open, and sent Errol on his way.

As Bill sat down on the couch, Pippa settled herself into the armchair and started on a rant about birds.

"I hate owls. That's why I don't have one. They stink, and smell, and leave crap all over the house. Don't let that one back in here if you can help it, and put it on newspaper if you do."

"Fine," Bill mumbled. He was getting a little sick of her constant complaining about anything involving or relating to him.

After an awkward silence, Bill braved an attempt at making conversation.

"How was work? You seem upset."

"It was lousy, and I _am_ upset," she said shortly, eyeing him suspiciously. "Why do you care?"

"I just wanted to know, seeing as I'm living with you and all," Bill said innocently. "Is there anything I can do?"

"No."

"Do you want anything to eat?" Bill asked. For him, food was a logical answer to a bad day at work. "I'm a decent cook, you know."

"I said no!" Pippa said, becoming visibly agitated. "I'm not hungry!" She got up from the armchair and made for the bedroom. Bill followed.

"But you didn't eat anything this morning," he pestered. "I'd be starving if I were you." Pippa whirled around and glared at him.

"But the funny thing about that is, you're not me," she spat at him. "For which, I'm eternally grateful."

"Why are you getting so upset about this?" Bill wanted to know. He was getting more annoyed with her unpredictable mood swings the longer he stayed with her.

"Because . . . You're so stupid!" she yelled, obviously hiding whatever it was that was actually bothering her.

"That's mature," Bill said flippantly, and then imitated her in a high, whiney voice. "You're so stupid! . . . Honestly, what's the matter?"

Pippa shoved him with much more force than he thought she could possess, and he staggered backwards a few feet before regaining his balance.

"What the hell was that about?" he demanded. After all, he was only trying to help.

Pippa's face was contorted into a sneer as she replied,

"You have no idea what you're talking about, so just stay out of it! Leave me alone, and don't pester me about stuff that doesn't concern you at all! Just stay out of my way!"

"That's going to be difficult, seeing as we share an apartment," Bill told her. She simply groaned and shoved past him on her way to the bedroom. When she reached the door, she turned back to him and said,

"You're such an ass!"

"Takes one to know one, sweetheart," Bill retorted childishly, thoroughly fed up with her antics by now. Pippa narrowed her eyes at him, darted into the bedroom, and slammed to door behind her.

As he watched her go, Bill thought snidely to himself,

"And the mystery that is Pippa Fitzpatrick deepens."


	5. Breakfast

**Title:** Scattered

**Author:** Lady Dissent

**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of the Weasleys or anyone/anything else from Harry Potter, and I am jealous of JKR for having though of them first. Any spelling, grammar, and other kinds of errors are, alas, my own.

**A/N:** Peter and Sirius (you know who you are), the smutty book section is for you. Hugs, flowers, and werewolf bites!

For warnings, ratings, and pairings, please see previous chapters.

Chapter 5

After spending another night on the couch of infinite discomfort, Bill woke up to the pleasant smell of bacon being cooked. He kept his eyes closed tightly, and inhaled the deeply intoxicating scent, trying to forget last night's fight with his roommate.

"Bill?"

He knew it was Pippa, and lazily opened one eye to look at her. She was in front of him, dressed impeccably and smiling brightly.

Bill didn't think that boded well for him at all. People only smiled like that when they were pleased with him, which rarely ever happened, or when they were about to inflict bodily harm. Knowing what he did about Pippa's temperament, Bill was going with the latter.

"Yes?" he croaked uncertainly. She grinned wider and said cheerily,

"You should get up now. I've made breakfast for you."

As he watched her flit back to the kitchen, Bill realized he didn't understand her at all.

Still, breakfast was breakfast, and he was starving. Bill stood up, stretched, and meandered to the kitchen counter. It was barely visible underneath a spread of nearly every food imaginable. With all the eggs, bacon, and toast, Bill didn't know what to think, let alone what to eat first.

Pippa piled a little of everything onto a plate for him, and said,

"Here you are. I hope you're hungry."

"You didn't poison it, did you?" he asked bluntly, eyeing the mouth watering food suspiciously. Pippa giggled and replied,

"Of course not!"

Bill threw her a look that said, quite plainly, "I don't believe you." Her face softened, and she told him,

"I just wanted to apologize. After all, I was rude last night. You were only trying to help, and I'm sorry."

Bill searched the depths of her face. Her words had to be the most blatantly sycophantic excuse for an apology he'd ever heard, but it seemed to contain at least an iota of honesty. She was almost convincing, and he was hungry enough to take the bait.

"'S all right," he grunted, picking up a fork. She beamed at him, becoming practically radiant.

At his first bite, the food made his knees weak. The more he ate, the more he felt his bad feelings toward Pippa ebb away. He had to admit when he finished that there was a lot to be said for the magic of a home cooked meal.

"Are you going to eat anything?" Bill asked her as he reached for seconds. Pippa looked up distractedly from the magazine she'd been reading and replied,

"Oh, no, I'll probably get something on the way to work."

"Are you sure?" Bill asked.

"Yes," she replied firmly, a bite of annoyance in her tone.

"All right, all right," Bill said. "Don't get upset. I was just making sure before I ate everything."

Pippa rolled her eyes, but didn't retort with something rude like she usually did. She seemed to be trying hard not to snap at Bill this morning, as though she were genuinely sorry for verbally flaying him last night. She returned to her magazine, while Bill returned to the food.

"Do you have a photo shoot today?" he asked casually, now halfway through another plate of eggs.

"Yes," Pippa said. "But it's later. Around two."

"What exactly do you do there?" Bill asked. "Just stand around and get your picture taken?"

"Basically," Pippa said. "I get to wear nice clothes, have my face plastered with a pound and a half of make-up, and sit seven hundred different ways while people snap pictures from eight thousand different angles."

"Why do you need all the make-up? You're already . . . Well, you're pretty to me."

Pippa looked up and gave him the first real smile he'd seen in days. It was like someone had turned the sun back on.

"Thank you," she said, and she meant it.

"No problem," Bill told her.

Pippa put down her magazine then, bored with it, and wandered to the sitting room. There, she picked up a romance novel and settled down on the couch with her face buried in its pages. Bill followed, mildly interested. He sat on the couch beside her, reading over her shoulder.

He didn't make it past the first sentence; the story was a bit graphic.

"Why do you read those?" he asked, his voice fraught with disgust. She turned to him and said snootily,

"Because I like them."

"Why?" Bill wanted to know. "They're all stupid."

"Have you ever read any?" Pippa asked, returning her attention to the book, which was entitled, "Three Nights in Rome." The cover depicted standard romance novel fare: a pastel color scheme dripping with flowers, silk, and script fonts, a scantily clad and apparently narcoleptic woman, and the quintessential Fabio, who was obviously on every steroid known to man.

"No," Bill said, affronted. "Of course not."

"Then you wouldn't really know that, would you?" she said calmly.

"You don't have to read them to know that," Bill retorted. "I can tell just by looking at the cover."

Pippa glared at him over the book's pages.

"Don't judge a book by its cover" she said wryly. Bill snorted and answered,

"I'm not even going to validate that with a response," Bill said, but then did so anyway. "The book is crap."

"You've never even read it," Pippa insisted. "It could be your favorite book, but you'd never know that because you won't give it a chance."

"I don't have to give it a chance; I already know that I won't like it," Bill said. To prove his point, he snatched to book from her and opened it to a random page. After reading about three sentences, he grimaced, tossed it back to her and said, "Just as I thought. I despise it."

Pippa snorted, but went back to reading.

"Then go pick out a book you like and read that," she snapped.

Bill did so without any further protesting. He selected one of her books about Egypt. It was the last one she had that he hadn't already read, so he tried to relish it and read it as slow as he could. This one was about ancient Egyptian mythology, and was by far the most interesting one so far.

"Egyptian gods were fond of incest," he commented, now halfway through the book. Pippa looked up vaguely and nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "It's gross."

"I agree," Bill said. "Seriously, I can't even imagine doing anything more than hugging any of my siblings, let alone . . . yeah, let's just leave it at that."

After and uncomfortable silence, Pippa looked up again, this time rather interested.

"You have siblings?" she asked.

"Yeah," Bill replied. "Six of them. Five brothers and a sister."

"You don't sound to happy about that," Pippa chuckled.

"Well, when you're the oldest," Bill said. "You get sick of all the younger ones perpetually getting you in trouble, and having to baby-sit on a whim, and never being able to do anything fun because you're the _oldest_ and you have to set an _example_ for the babies . . . But I digress."

"I don't know what you're complaining about," Pippa said softly. "I'd love to have a younger sister or brother."

"Sure, it's nice sometimes," he began. "But seven kids is far more than enough."

"Maybe," Pippa said in that same quiet voice. "But I'll bet it's better than being alone all the time." She sighed, and closed her romance novel.

"You've got your parents, at least," Bill said. "You have all their attention and-"

"My parents?" Pippa snorted. "I hate having all their attention, just like they hate me. They hate what I am; what I've become."

Bill was puzzled. He didn't see anything wrong with her, besides her perpetual mood swings. In fact, if he'd had a kid like her, he'd have been proud to the point of hubris.

"And what exactly is this terrible thing you've become?" he asked, putting his own book aside.

He never found out, though, because at that moment, Pippa glanced at the clock and promptly sprang from the couch.

"Holy crap!" she shouted. "I'm going to be late!"

It was useless to try getting anything out of her after that, because she was bustling around the apartment at a furious pace, stopping only to tell Bill that she'd be home late, that he shouldn't wait up for her or anything like that, and shrieking all of the usual things that she liked to yell at him before leaving for a photo shoot.

"And don't make me any food, either, because I won't eat it," was the last thing she said to him before she bolted out the door, slamming it resolutely behind her.


	6. Department of Backstory

**Title:** Scattered

**Author:** Lady Dissent

**Disclaimer:** Just borrowing from the Amazing JKR.

**A/N:** All right, you just might see some of the fastest writing EVER here, because I have this chapter and the next one to get done before Christmas . . . And the next chapter is a huge one. Damn.

Please see previous chapters for ratings, warnings, pairings and all that jazz.

Chapter 6

There wasn't much for Bill to do for the rest of the day. After cleaning the breakfast dishes, which Pippa had graciously left for him, he spread himself out on the couch with another book from his roommate's expansive collection. He stayed there for hours, half reading and half daydreaming until he lapsed into a contentedly vacant stupor.

When Pippa came home that evening, it was to a darkened apartment and a sleeping Bill. She tried to be quiet so as not to wake him, but failed fantastically after accidentally dropping the teapot onto the kitchen floor with a loud crash.

Bill shot up with a start, looking around wildly for the source of the noise.

"Whawuzat?" he mumbled groggily.

"Nothing," Pippa replied, repairing the shattered teapot with a flick of her wand. "I'm just clumsy."

There was an unmistakable flutter in her voice, though. She was upset about something.

"What's wrong?" Bill asked, crossing to the kitchen counter. Pippa was behind it, setting the kettle on the stove with trembling hands and fumbling with the dials for the burner. She turned to Bill and said with a painfully forced smile,

"Nothing."

Knowing that he was treading on dangerous ground, Bill told her,

"I think you're lying."

"What's it to you if I am?" she snapped venomously, her verbal fangs showing despite her obvious distress.

"I'm your roommate," Bill said, reaching over the counter to place a comforting hand on her shoulder. She pulled away instinctively as he continued, "And I care."

She didn't say anything to this, simply sat heavily on the stool beside Bill. After a while, she said rather pointlessly,

"I'm making tea . . . You can have some if you want."

"Thank you," Bill said reflexively. "Really, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Pippa repeated forcefully, and then added quietly, "Nothing I feel like talking about anyway." She drummed her fingers on the countertop distractedly, looking, at least to Bill, very small and helpless.

"I wouldn't tell anyone, you know," he said. "I can keep secrets."

Pippa smiled humorlessly and said blandly,

"It's not about keeping secrets, it's about what I feel comfortable telling you."

Bill nodded. He was slowly discovering that Pippa was a very complicated person; the kind that he didn't think he'd ever really understand. She refused his help, and it bothered him, but he suspected now that she might have her reasons.

The kettle sang, breaking the silence, and Pippa got up to tend to it. Bill watched her. She was quick and sure about it, flitting around easily from place to place, fetching the milk, the sugar, two teacups. She seemed to be forcing herself to be merry and cheerful, but it wasn't working. When she handed Bill his cup of tea, he noticed her eyes were wet with unshed tears.

"What's wrong?" he asked again. She looked at him, that hard, warning glare in her eye, and sat down next to him without saying anything. Bill sighed, and sipped his tea.

"This is different," he said, gesturing to the cup. "What kind is it?"

"Irish breakfast," Pippa told him. "It's the only kind I like."

"Ah," Bill said. "I'm pretty partial to Earl Grey, myself."

"Well, you would be," she answered with a smirk. "I've heard most English are."

Her comment jarred Bill. Until now, he'd assumed she was from England, like he was.

"You're not English?" he asked. She smiled as she replied,

"No. I'm Irish."

"You don't have an accent," Bill said. "And you have an English name." This conversation seemed safe, and it almost seemed to comfort her, or at least take her mind off whatever was bothering her.

"I was born in Ireland," Pippa began, sipping her tea. "But my parents moved to the States soon after. A few months, I think. I grew up there, in Boston. As for my name, my parents just liked it. They told me it was beautiful, just like me."

At that, she glared down at her tea and stirred it furiously with her spoon. Bill found that odd, seeing as she was drinking it straight, but decided not to say anything about it.

"Not on good terms with your parents, then?" he asked delicately, knowing it was one of the many subjects that might set her off.

Pippa nodded, and said quietly,

"Mum didn't want me to be a witch. My dad was a wizard, as pureblooded as they come, and my mum had some wizarding blood back in her family, but she didn't want it for me. She wanted me to be a normal Muggle child, so she sent me to a Muggle school. My dad wanted me to go to the Wizard school down in Salem, but my mum didn't. They had a huge fight about it, but my dad won."

Bill was quiet, listening to her. It was the most he'd ever heard her say.

"How'd you become a model then?" he asked.

"That was my mum's fault," Pippa said, and surprisingly, she sounded bitter. "She put me in every beauty pageant she could find when I was little. When I went to Salem, she got really obsessed with it. I guess she didn't want me to do anything magical once I was done. I had to take classes and lessons over the summer when school wasn't in session. It was fun in the beginning, but it wasn't really what I wanted to do. I only wanted to . . . "

Her voice trailed off, and she looked away, draining the remains her tea in one gulp.

"What?" Bill asked. By now, he was quite intrigued by her history. "What did you want to do?"

"It's nothing," Pippa said sadly.

"Then it shouldn't matter," Bill insisted. There was a pause, and Pippa said quietly,

"Can't argue with that . . . Well, I just wanted to play soccer."

"What's soccer?" Bill asked. "Is it a Muggle game?"

"Yeah," Pippa said, a fond gleam in her eye. "It's awesome." And then she was off, animatedly explaining the basic logistics of the game to Bill. He didn't really get it, this game played with just one black and white ball and no broomsticks, but nodded and smiled anyway. It made him happy to see her so excited about something for once.

"Why didn't you play it?" he asked. Here, Pippa's smile fell, and she said quietly,

"Because my mother didn't want me to. I was good enough, but she didn't think it was 'ladylike' or something like that."

"Oh."

Pippa looked away again, and a tear slid down her cheek. She wiped it away furiously, obviously angry with herself for crying, and looked around for a distraction.

"Do you still play?" Bill asked. Soccer sounded fun.

"I haven't for years," she answered. "And I'd probably die if I tried now. I'm too . . . "

"Too what?"

"Nothing."

Pippa got up from the counter quickly, and went over to the couch. She picked up her romance novel and started to flip through the pages. Bill suspected she wasn't really reading, just ending their conversation via Fabio, and it bothered him: both her introspectiveness, and her unfinished sentence. He knew that she had nearly given herself away, because Bill was certain that the next word out of her mouth was going to be "thin".


	7. Anorexia, soccer, and all that Jazz

**Title:** Scattered

**Author:** Lady Dissent

**Disclaimer:** Just borrowing.

**A/N:** All right, this chapter is a huge one; lots of plot points, which makes it harder than hell to write. And it's the last one before my Christmas one! Woot-ness. Enjoy!

And, FYI, I do know that Gringotts is run by goblins, but I personally think that they've got to have at least _a few_ humans working in upper management. (You'll understand this once you read the chapter).

I suppose the Hamlet quote at the end of this chapter will only be funny if you've actually read the play, but I think it works.

For ratings, pairings, and warnings, please see previous chapters.

Chapter 7

After that conversation, Bill thought things would be different between himself and Pippa, and he was right. She was less harsh, a little kinder. Human, even. She was careful, though, never to touch on her past or eating habits ever again. Whenever Bill brought either subject up, which he did every so often, she turned on him and became the same verbally violent person she had been for their first few days together. Some of her favorite insults were "limey Brit", "manky git", and "walking faux pas".

That didn't deter Bill from questioning her, though. He suspected something was wrong, and was determined to help her, whether she wanted him to or not . . . Well, he wouldn't be _that_ forceful, but he wanted to know what was bugging her so that he could stop it. She could be absolutely wonderful when she wasn't in one of her peevish, "I-hate-everyone" moods, and he wanted to keep her that way.

It bothered Bill that the only thing he'd ever seen her eat had been the occasional saltine cracker, and that she seemed to subside on straight tea. He didn't think it was normal, or even right. He suspected her modeling career was to blame. All that pressure to be perfect, to be thin, to be beautiful all the time, it had to be hell.

The longer he stayed with her, the more Bill came to understand how truly rotten her life was because of her job. She couldn't catch a break from anyone. In the two weeks following their conversation about her past, Pippa was kicked out of five photo shoots, coming home each time in shambles. She wouldn't eat, or even drink anything, for days afterwards, becoming more depressed and bad-tempered as the seconds past.

He tried his best to comfort her, and at first she rebuffed him, insulting him worse than ever, calling him all manner of horrible nasty things. But after she was let go from her third job, she just gave up being rude and let Bill help her.

She came home that day, sobbing, and she didn't even try to stop Bill's hug. She just cried into his shoulder.

"Why does everyone want to torture me?" she'd practically wailed, sinking deep into his embrace. "Why can't they just kill me and get it over with?"

Bill hadn't known what to say to this, just kept rubbing her back, cringing as he felt everyone of her vertebrae. She cried her eyes out into his shirt, denouncing her work and life in general, and seemed strangely resolved after that. She sat up, sniffed, and looked at him pitifully as she self-consciously smoothed her hair. Bill smiled weakly, still quite clueless.

Things got a little better after that. Pippa began to open up to Bill, slowly of course, and he did his best to aid and understand her. It was difficult, though; one wrong word from Bill, and they would end up back at square one, with a verbally abusive Pippa and a completely oblivious Bill.

At the beginning of December, when Bill had been living with her for about six weeks, he decided to confront her about what he thought was her eating problem. She hadn't snapped at him for three days, so Bill figured this could go one of two ways: one, she'd either be in a good enough mood to tell him what was wrong, or two, she would screech that he was long overdue and flay him with words.

He was hoping for option number one.

"Pippa," he began cautiously one morning as he worked his way through a plate of eggs and bacon. She'd gotten into the habit of making a lovely breakfast for him every morning, but never actually ate anything herself. "I want to ask you something."

She looked up mildly, eyeing him critically.

"Yeah?"

There was a defensive edge to her tone, which Bill didn't think boded well for him at all, but he continued anyway.

"Why don't you ever eat anything?"

He knew the second he said those words that he was dead. Pippa's eyes flashed with self-protective anger, and she said with dangerous calm,

"I do eat. I ate yesterday, remember?"

Bill snorted and replied,

"You had three crackers and half a cup of tea. That, to me, doesn't constitute a meal."

"Well, it does for me," Pippa snapped. "Just drop it."

"No," Bill said firmly. "I want to know why you never eat anything."

"And I don't want to tell you. Just leave it," she replied curtly.

"Why?" Bill pestered.

"Because it's none of your business."

"I think it is."

"Well, you're wrong."

They were both quiet for a few tense moments, and then Bill spoke again.

"Why won't you just tell me?"

"Because it isn't that simple!" Pippa yelled, throwing down the magazine she'd been reading. Unfortunately, it looked like Bill was going to get response number two. "I can't just spill my heart out on a whim! I'm more complicated than that; I don't trust that easily. You should know that by now."

"I'm not asking you to spill your heart out," Bill said, trying to calm her down. "I just want to know why you never eat."

"Which is tantamount to the same thing!" Pippa yelled. "It's _my_ business, and I don't want to tell _you_!"

"Why not? What have I done?" Bill wanted to know.

Pippa opened her mouth to yell something at him, but stopped. She tried again, but still nothing came; she couldn't think of anything bad or repulsive that he had done to her that would warrant her current behavior. After a painfully awkward silence, she retreated behind her wall of verbal insults.

"You limey British bastard, just stay the hell out of my personal life!"

"That's mature," Bill said. "You can't give me a straight answer, so you insult me . . . Come on, Pippa, we've played this game hundreds of times, and we both know how it ends. Just tell me."

Pippa stood up and started to leave the counter; Bill followed. She turned on him and said,

"It's not like you'd understand even if I did."

"Maybe that's true, but I'd try anyway," Bill said. He could tell her resistance was beginning to wane; her insults and attacks were becoming less cruel and biting. She might crack this time, if he could only draw her out a bit longer . . .

"Just piss off, all right?" Pippa said. She was glaring at him, but Bill was certain it was just an act now.

"No," he said simply. "Tell me." Pippa looked around for a distraction, trying to buy herself more time.

"Don't you have to go to work or something?" she said evasively.

Bill had managed to find himself a desk job at Gringotts a few weeks back, thanks mostly to Pippa. He had found the advert in The Daily Prophet, and showed it to her. She had become strangely ecstatic, and told Bill that he should definitely go for it. (He knew now that the rent had been due in a few days, and that Pippa hadn't been paid in at least a month.) They managed to settle an interview within a few days, and less than a week later, Bill got the job.

On his first day of work, he'd been informed by one of his co-workers that the person who hired him (a somewhat ditzy assistant something-or-another) had "absolutely _loved_ his outfit" and that was why "he _totally_ got handed the job". Pippa had, of course, insisted on picking out his interview outfit, telling him that, frankly, he "looked like he got dressed in the dark every morning". This had resulted in a mild fight that lasted about two days, and ended once Bill got the job.

"No," Bill answered. "It's Saturday; I never work on Saturdays."

Pippa was running out of excuses now. Bill watched her closely, and he could practically see the wheels in her brain spinning out of control as she groped around for some sort of insult to toss his way.

"You're stupid, you know that?" she said finally. "Really stupid."

"Right," Bill said, and they both knew it was over. Pippa looked away, and then flopped down on the couch in a miserable huff. Bill followed, and sat beside her. She kicked out at him, but he avoided her.

"Just tell me," he said delicately, putting a comforting hand on her back and rubbing circles there. She was tense and apprehensive at first, and then, she just let everything go and softened at his touch. Bill heard her mumble something into the pillow, but it was so garbled and muffled that he couldn't understand it.

"Come again?" he said quietly. Pippa picked her head up and repeated quietly,

"Because it's all I have left."

She had been right; Bill didn't have the slightest clue what that had to do with her refusal to eat.

Pippa sat up and wiped away tears that had run down her cheeks.

"Don't you get it, Bill?" she said pitifully, her eyes watering again against her will. "That's the one thing I can control; all that they haven't taken from me. They tell me what to do, how to stand, how to dress, who I should be seen with, but they _can't_ tell me how to eat. Only I get to decide that."

Bill was silent. He hadn't really expected this. He thought she'd have some big complicated reason for not eating, not something so simple as, basically, sticking it to the man.

"You don't have to starve yourself," he finally said. "You could eat . . . "

"No, I can't," Pippa said resolutely. "If I do, I'll be ugly, and I can't be ugly. They won't take me then . . . "

"Then find something else to do," Bill said. "You hate it anyway. It wouldn't be such a loss." Pippa laughed harshly and said,

"You think it's that simple? That I can just pick myself up, brush away the dirt, and do something else? God, Bill, if it were that easy, I would have done it years ago . . . But I _can't_. I can't do anything else. I'm worthless. Modeling is the only thing I have." She snorted here. "Figures. The only thing I'm almost good at is standing around and having my picture taken."

Bill was shocked.

"You're not worthless," he said slowly. "Who told you that you were?"

"Everyone. Every time they judged me, looked the other way, fired me . . . Anytime they did anything to me, they told me without words that I'm worthless and always will be . . . And I believe them."

"Well, I don't," Bill said firmly. "You aren't worthless, Pippa."

"Right," she said, her voice rank with sarcasm and defeat. "I've done a bang up job with my life; I'm really such a winner . . . In fact, I'm actually the Queen of England. Sorry I lied to you all this time."

Bill couldn't keep the smile from flickering on his face, and it was contagious. Soon, Pippa was grinning sheepishly, too.

"Quite all right," Bill said cheerily. Pippa rolled her eyes, and much to Bill's surprise, snuggled closer to him.

"So now you know," she said simply. "You know how screwed up I am."

"Exactly," Bill said. "So now I can help."

Pippa snorted again.

"Don't," she said. "I'm not worth it."

"Well, I think you are, even if you don't. And I'm going to make you see that, no matter what," Bill told her determinedly.

"Right," she said, and added with her usual dollop of caustic wit, "Have fun with that."

Just as Bill expected, things were completely different now between Pippa and himself. She spent the next few days being cold and distant, as if Bill had reached that week's limit of interaction with her by finding out what he had that day.

Bill sometimes had to put on the "hat of insufferable hardass-ness", as Pippa dubbed it, about her eating habits. He knew she hated him for it, but strangely, she didn't fight it with as much vigor as he thought she would. Bill liked to think that deep down, she knew it was best for her, but he admitted that he wasn't quite sure.

Whatever the circumstances, Bill thought they were making progress, slow and pitiful as it was. Whenever Pippa made breakfast for him, which she still did faithfully every morning, Bill made her eat at least a quarter of what he did . . . Which was admittedly quite a lot, because as Pippa liked to point out, Bill ate like a horse. Sometimes she even imitated him in a wholly unflattering manner, but he dealt with it. As long as she was laughing at him, he thought, she wouldn't mind eating a little more each day.

Bill never wasted an opportunity to tell her how beautiful he thought she was. Usually, this didn't go over too well, and resulted in Bill getting smoked in the head with whatever she was holding at the time, but she accepted his compliment often enough for him to keep risking it. The soft blush that rose to her cheeks whenever she did made it worth it for Bill, who began to want nothing more than for her to see herself the way he did: a beautiful, wonderful woman who deserved nothing short of the best.

December wore on, and life settled into a comfortable routine inside their apartment. Pippa decided that she knew Bill well enough that he could stay in the same bed with her at night, a revelation that Bill was eternally grateful for. After a month of sleeping on the couch, he was all too ready for a real bed again. Bill was careful not to touch her at all for the first few nights, but when he woke up one morning with her sprawled out over his chest, sleeping soundly, he decided to give it up. She didn't seem to mind.

One blustery Saturday in December, on a day when neither Bill nor Pippa had anything to do, the former convinced the latter to show him how to play soccer. It had taken some heavy persuading, and having to endure quite a few blows, but he finally won. Pippa dug out her soccer ball from the bowels of her closet, and told Bill to bundle up because they were going outside.

They walked quickly to the small park a few blocks away from their apartment building. It was fairly cold, and the morning's frost remained on the ground even though it was nearly noon, but Pippa didn't care. In fact, she seemed to be happier than Bill had seen her before. They reached the park, and were both pleased to find that it was practically deserted.

"Now, I have to warn you," Bill began as Pippa stretched casually. "Any athletic ability to be had in my family went to my brother Charlie."

"That's all right," Pippa said, fiddling indifferently with the ball. "I'm probably going to suck, too. I haven't played for years."

With that, she started her lesson. They spent a few minutes going over the basics of the game, and appointed goals at opposite ends of the park.

"Basically, you just have to get the ball into my goal, and you get a point," Pippa said. "The one with the most points at the end wins. It's really quite simple."

"You say that now," Bill said. "But I can overcomplicate anything if I try hard enough."

Pippa smiled, and they started. Within two minutes, she'd gotten five points to Bill's zero. They kept playing, however, because Bill insisted that he wanted to get better. Really, he just wanted to watch her, which was partly to blame for his dismal performance. But, honestly, he thought to himself after she scored her twelfth goal, he didn't think that was too bad.

By the end of the afternoon, they had suspended more than half the rules of the game because Bill kept forgetting them. After they'd been playing for an hour and a half, he finally managed to score . . . once. When the game was over, he had a total of four points, and Pippa had stopped counting at 47.

They walked back from the park as the sun was setting. Pippa looped her arm through Bill's, and leaned her head on his shoulder. It was quiet, and they were content to simply walk beside each other until they reached the apartment building.

By the time the elevator had climbed to the eighth floor, however, Bill had been daring enough to try and loop his arm around Pippa's waist, and when the doors opened, he was chasing her down the hall. They were both laughing like school children, and Bill was hard pressed to think of a time when Pippa had looked prettier: her cheeks still flushed from both their soccer game and the cold, her hair mussed, and face drawn up in pleasant laughter.

They were having such a good time that they failed to notice Bill's parents waiting by their apartment door, and it was Pippa who accidentally ran into them headlong, knocking Mr. Weasley to the ground and nearly doing the same to Mrs. Weasley. Bill barely managed to stop in time enough to avoid the same fate, but only by inadvertently slamming his mother into the doorframe of the apartment.

It took him a few seconds to regain his wits, and he was thoroughly embarrassed once he'd done so.

"Mum!" he said jovially, hoping that she was in a good enough mood to laugh this off with him. "How lovely to see you! I didn't know you'd be coming . . . "

Mrs. Weasley glared admonishingly at her son and said with a tone of forced calm,

"Bill, be a dear and help your father up."

He had no choice but to oblige, and felt like an utter ass as he did so. His father, however, didn't seem quite as upset about the whole thing, especially considering he had actually been knocked over in the process.

"Oh, it's no trouble Molly," he said, brushing some errant dirt off his threadbare robe as he stood up. "I suppose our son was just excited to see us?" He was sporting that knowing smile, however, that only Arthur Weasley was authorized to use. The smile that said, "I know what you did, but I'll let it pass just this once."

"Yeah, let's go with that," Bill said apologetically, now helping Pippa to her feet. She had gotten rid of her look of absolute mortification, and was now wearing a pleasant smile, obviously trying to put her best foot forward despite the past moment's events.

"Are you going to introduce your roommate, or shall we have to guess her name?" Mr. Weasley said brightly, looking at Pippa with a smile.

"Oh, right," Bill said. "Mum, Dad, this is Pippa."

"Hello," Pippa said cordially, holding out her hand expectantly to each of Bill's parents in turn. Mr. Weasley shook it enthusiastically, smiling and returning her salutation cheerily. Mrs. Weasley was far more reserved, and after pointedly refusing to take Pippa's hand and greeting her instead with a slight nod of the head, she addressed Bill quite briskly.

"Your father and I were coming to see what your plans for Christmas were."

"Oh, I . . . I don't know," Bill said stumblingly.

"Do you think you'll be coming home?" Mrs. Weasley asked.

Bill didn't quite know what to say. He hadn't really decided one way or the other, but had been contemplating staying at his apartment for Christmas; not because he was avoiding his home, but because he had figured it would just be easier for everyone involved. Everyone back at the Burrow had probably adjusted to life without him by now, and his coming home would be the proverbial wrench that screwed the system.

He also had thought that leaving to go visit his huge family while Pippa had to stay here alone over the holidays would be rude, and he didn't want to forget about her.

Pippa, though, was smiling brightly at the moment, and it was she who spoke next.

"Well, actually, Bill and I were thinking that you all could come here for Christmas." She said this congenially, but with enough bite that Bill understood he should just go with it, even though they had discussed nothing of the sort.

Mrs. Weasley regarded Pippa briefly, but Bill knew from experience that she was sizing her up. After a few tense seconds, she began to reply, matching Pippa's plummy tones.

"That is a lovely idea. I assume you'll be cooking, of course?"

This was a dare, not a question, and Bill hoped that Pippa would be smart and say, "No."

"Of course," Pippa chirped. "You won't have to do a thing."

He knew right then that Pippa was as good as dead. If there was ever a food Nazi, it was Molly Weasley. She had scoured the earth, and had never found anyone who could cook up to her standards, especially when it came to cooking for her sons.

"Wonderful," Mrs. Weasley said, and Bill nearly went into cardiac arrest. "You do know that we'll be bringing everyone, though? All eight of us?" Bill was sure there was a hint of danger in his mother's voice, as though she were taunting Pippa into doing this.

"The more the merrier," Pippa replied. She was quite a match for the formidable Mrs. Weasley, more than capable of holding her own.

"Are you sure we'll all fit?" Mrs. Weasley said pointedly. "Your apartment looks rather small."

"Mum!" Bill exclaimed, sensing that his mother and roommate were now locked in a dangerous battle of wills that could lead to bloodshed. "The apartment's fine!"

"Oh, we'll be all right," Pippa assured her, her tone as honeyed as she continued. "It'll be cozy."

Mrs. Weasley smiled, and Pippa grinned right back. Bill wouldn't have been surprised if they both sprouted fangs and began ripping each other apart right then.

"Well, in that case," Mrs. Weasley said. "We'll see you both on Christmas."

"I look forward to it," Pippa harped, and both she and Bill waved as Mr. and Mrs. Weasley retreated down the hall and Disapparated.

Once they were gone, Pippa let out a monstrous groan and stormed inside the apartment, shrieking about what a horrible woman Bill's mother was.

"Pippa, do you know what you just agreed to do?" Bill asked, sitting on the couch. Pippa was already there, and she snapped at him,

"Vaguely. Does it involve killing myself to make your mother happy?"

"It might," Bill said. He had gathered from his mum and Pippa's exchange that the two women despised each other, and he knew that that couldn't possibly go well.

"Great," Pippa groaned. "I get to spend Christmas with the mother from hell . . . "

"Hey!" Bill said defensively. "Don't say that about my mum!"

"Sorry," Pippa said. "Sometimes I forget that other people actually like their parents." She closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the couch. She stayed that way for a few moments, and then said,

"Well, I'm going to get ready for bed. I'm going to need my strength if I'm going to cook for your oversized family."

"Pippa, Christmas isn't for another week," Bill began, ignoring her crack about his family. "Surely you don't need _that_ much time?" Pippa smiled at him and said wryly,

"In the words of Hamlet, 'The readiness is all'."


	8. Merry Freaking Christmas

**Title:** Scattered

**Author:** Lady Dissent

**Disclaimer:** Sadly, most of it isn't mine. I'm just borrowing from the Great JKR.

**A/N:** Well, here's my very special, unintentionally freaking huge Christmas chapter. I've been looking forward to writing it ever since I first planned out my story. I hope you guys like it.

Reviews and comments make great presents!

For rating, pairings, warnings, and other important info, please see previous chapters.

Chapter 8

When he went to bed on Christmas Eve, Bill knew that tomorrow was going to be an interesting day. Pippa had spent most of it preparing what she was going to cook for his, as she put it, heinously oversized family. He'd given up trying to stop her insults at around noon, and just retreated behind the shelter of an inventory report he had to finish for work. After that, the only time she bothered him was to ask him what his family usually ate on Christmas, how it was served, when they ate, and other such things.

She was going to impress Molly Weasley, or die trying.

He woke up relatively early on Christmas morning, and since he had no desire to be up and moving before nine o'clock, he stayed right where he was. Pippa was sprawled out over him, so getting up wasn't really an option anyway.

He often woke up to find her in such a state, and was a little surprised at himself that he didn't find it very awkward or uncomfortable. In fact, he rather enjoyed it; not many men in the world could say that they woke up every morning with a model on top of them.

Pippa stirred soon after. It was always a toss-up as to what mood she'd be in; some days she was sunny and pleasant, other days . . . not so much. Today, she seemed to go the first route, and Bill was happy about that. It was much too early and he was much too tired to execute any sort of evasive maneuver.

"Merry Christmas," she mumbled groggily, giving him a tired grin. Pippa was anything but a morning person, even on her best days.

"You too," Bill replied, and then added sheepishly, "I . . . Well, I got you a present."

Her face brightened noticeably at this. Bill had discovered one way to sedate her when she was in a snit was to give her something, and he was quickly becoming acquainted with all her personal tastes. Admittedly, this wasn't very hard: anything sparkly or fancy usually did the trick.

"Go get it," she said eagerly, sitting up and stretching. "I have something for you, too." With that, she picked up her wand from the bedside table and gave it a wave. Bill's present came floating down from the top of the dresser, neatly wrapped in a black box with green ribbon.

Bill retrieved hers in a similar manner. The box he now had was much smaller than the one she did, but he was still betting that she'd like what he'd got her.

"You go first," Pippa ordered, holding out her hand expectantly. Bill smirked and replied,

"All right. Close your eyes."

She smiled and obeyed. Bill opened the small velvet box, and quickly linked the contents around her neck. He then summoned the small hand mirror she kept on her dresser and positioned it so she could see what was now hanging about her neck.

"Open," he told her, and she did with a stunned gasp. Fastened around her neck was a delicate silver chain, and on that was a beautifully princess-cut emerald pendant. Pippa couldn't even begin to guess how much it had cost.

"Bill!" she began, hand flying to the pendant in surprise. "It's gorgeous!"

"You were born in May, right?" he asked, a smile playing at his lips.

"Yeah," she breathed, still in shock over his gift.

"Good, I got the right month then," Bill said with a sigh of relief. "I knew it was one of those 'M' months, but couldn't remember which one."

Pippa let out a small laugh, and went back to staring at the necklace in utter amazement.

"How much was this?" she finally managed to get out.

"I'm not telling you!" Bill said with a chuckle. "Why, don't you like it?"

"Of course I like it, you silly man!" she said, feigning offense and striking his arm. "I just . . . wondered. I didn't think you liked me that much."

"I like you that much," Bill told her. She looked at him, eyes welling up with tears.

"Thank you," she said, wiping them away as her cheeks flushed. She'd never been told that by anyone before. Shyly, she picked up his box and handed it to him. "Here," she said. "Merry Christmas."

"Thanks," Bill said, eagerly tearing into his present. Pippa watched him with amusement; no matter how old that man got, he always became three again whenever someone gave him a present.

"Whoa, Pippa!" Bill exclaimed, holding up her gift to him: an expensive-looking black leather jacket. "This is great!"

"I thought you'd like it," she said modestly. "It'll make you look sexy."

"Excuse me?" Bill said, jarred by her forwardness.

"Come on, Bill," Pippa began. "There is nothing sexier on a man than a black leather jacket . . . Except maybe a frock coat."

Bill rolled his eyes, ignoring the fact that he didn't know what a frock coat was, and pulled the jacket on over his pajamas. It fit like a glove.

"Perfect," Pippa said playfully.

Bill snorted, and she laughed.

"Well, I should get up now and start cooking for your fastidious mother," she said bitterly.

"Pippa," Bill groaned reproachfully as he watched her spring up from the bed and go about her morning routine. "My mother isn't that bad."

"That's right, Bill," she retorted. "Your mother is a saint . . . Honestly, I don't even know why I agreed to do this."

"As I recall, you didn't have to," Bill said, sitting up and slowly getting out of bed. Pippa was bouncing about the room, collecting her clothes and toiletries as she prepared to take her shower. "My mum offered to have us come home."

"No, Bill, she said _you_ could go home," Pippa corrected him. "I wasn't included."

"Well, I wouldn't have gone anyway," Bill said. "I couldn't think of leaving you here alone for Christmas."

Pippa stopped digging around in her dresser, and smiled at him over her shoulder.

"Thanks, Bill."

"No problem," he answered. Getting out of the bed and crossing the room, Bill stood next to Pippa and hugged her about the middle. She stopped flitting around and let him nuzzle her gently. They had become closer these past few weeks, and some people might even have said that they were dating. Neither of them would have classified it that way, but they were certainly becoming more than just good friends.

"Mmm, I need to take a shower," Pippa sighed, closing her eyes and snuggling closer to Bill, who snickered. "And then I have to get breakfast, and start on the turkey . . . And this place is a dump, someone'll have to clean it before Saint Mama Weasley gets here . . . "

Bill shushed her with his finger, and said quietly,

"I'll get breakfast this morning, you go take your shower . . . And stop making cracks about my mum."

"Would you?" she asked hopefully, turning to face him. "Oh God, you're amazing."

"Well," Bill said slyly. "I try."

Pippa chuckled, and then fluttered away to the bathroom, humming something that could almost be identified as "Greensleeves." Bill trudged out to the kitchen and began pulling out pans and food. He'd decided on omelets, seeing as that was one of the only breakfast foods he could make. Bill was definitely a "comfort food" sort of person, and was always amazed by Pippa's ability to whip up anything more complicated than a batch of cookies.

He also found it ironic that an anorexic model was one of the best cooks he'd ever known.

Bill was just finishing up when Pippa came out of the bathroom, her hair still wet but otherwise perfectly groomed. She was wearing a very fitted pair of dark blue jeans and a fluffy white sweater. Bill's pendant was still around her neck, pleasantly noticeable against the crispness of her sweater. She took one look at the huge omelet on her plate and said immediately,

"Do you expect me to eat _all_ of this?"

"Yes," Bill answered shortly. For all their bonding lately, Pippa had been resolutely fighting his attempts to fatten her up. "I went through all the trouble of making it, and it would be rude of you not to finish it."

She rolled her eyes, and sat down in a huff.

"What if my stomach explodes because you make me eat too much?" she prompted, reaching for the salt and pepper. "How would you feel to have that on your hands?"

"I'd feel awful, but I really don't see that happening," Bill retorted, sitting down with his own, much larger, plate of food and digging in without further ado. Pippa groaned, and slowly began to eat her breakfast. They were quiet throughout the rest of the meal, Pippa's mood swing having scared away all possible conversation.

"What do you need help with today?" Bill asked as he cleared away their plates. Pippa stayed behind the counter, looking sick. He knew she was acting, and was decidedly ignoring her drama queen bit, being far too used to it to care. "Turkey, potatoes? I'm pretty good with both."

"I'm making all the food today," Pippa said firmly. Her moodiness disappeared instantly, and she was all drill sergeant. "I'm going to impress your mother, so I don't want any help. You can clean, though. This place is a mess."

With that, she got up and began bustling around the kitchen, summoning all her biggest cooking pots and pans and knives from the far corners of the room. Bill decided it would be best to leave her alone for now, and started to straighten up the living room.

It was surprising how much stuff they had managed to fling around their apartment, especially considering how little both of them had. The bulk of the mess was Pippa's smutty book collection and Bill's dirty clothes, the latter of which he dumped unceremoniously onto the bedroom floor. It took him a good two hours to tidy the undersized room up to Pippa's exacting standards, and then he got to start on the dining area.

At around ten in the morning, Pippa turn on their small television and set the channel to an American station she had bullied her cable provider into letting her get. (It cost a pretty penny every time the bill was due, but Pippa was resolute about keeping it.) The show that came on was called "A Christmas Story", and Pippa seemed enamored with it. She ordered Bill not to change the channel unless he had a death wish, and retreated into the kitchen again.

Bill could hear her quoting every line.

He realized that the show was on for the entire day, repeating in a seemingly endless loop. He caught snatches of it during his breaks from cleaning their apartment, and gathered that had he been watching it properly, the movie would have been very enjoyable. It was about a little kid named Ralphie and his longing for the perfect Christmas gift: some sort of "air rifle", which Pippa had to explain to Bill because he had no idea what it was. He made a mental note to tell his father about it; it seemed the sort of thing he'd be interested in.

At 3:30, Pippa announced that she was nearly done and it was time for her break. She floated into the living room and plopped down on the couch beside Bill, who was attempting to watch, for the fourth time that day, the movie.

"What time is your family getting here?" she asked casually, leaning her head on his leather-clad shoulder. Bill still had yet to get fully dressed; he'd been padding about the house all day in his new jacket and a ratty pair of navy blue pajama pants.

"I think my mum said around four," he told her. "Why?"

Pippa shot up.

"What?" she screeched. "Bill, that's only, like, 20 minutes from now! Why didn't you say something earlier?"

"I wasn't aware that I was supposed to," Bill said wryly.

"Well, what are you still doing on the couch?" Pippa snapped. "Get up! Get dressed! Your parents are going to be here in two seconds, and your just lolling around half naked! Go!"

Bill made no effort to move, and instead replied,

"Pippa, my parents have seen me in worse shape than this. For heaven's sake, they raised me. I don't think they'll care."

"You don't get it, do you?" Pippa said exasperatedly.

"Enlighten me."

"This isn't about you, Bill, it's about me!" she began. "If your mother sees _you_ dressed like a bum and loafing around on the couch, she'll think it's _my_ fault!" Bill looked at her disbelievingly, and she continued. "I'm your roommate, Bill. Your _female_ roommate. I'm supposed to take care of you, make sure you get dressed, feed you and that sort of thing. If your mother comes here and sees you like this, she'll think I'm a terrible person!"

Bill still didn't understand, but by now, Pippa was hitting him with the throw pillows, so he decided to just go with it and hauled himself off the couch.

"Anything special you want me to wear?" he asked jokingly.

"Yeah," Pippa answered, completely serious. "That dark green sweater you had on the other day, and a pair of jeans. _Clean_ ones."

Bill rolled his eyes, but went to do her bidding. Now that Pippa's will was set, he was going to look presentable, whether he wanted to or not.

"Mum! How nice to see you!" Bill found himself saying a few minutes later as he ushered her inside. "Can I get your coat?"

"No, thank you, Bill," Mrs. Weasley said merrily. "Arthur, come along. You can look at that later."

Bill's dad had become distracted by the telephone in the hall, and Mrs. Weasley had to pry him away from it so that the rest of the family could get in.

Bill showed everyone into the sitting room, which he suspected Pippa had just put an Enlarging Charm on. There was certainly more room in here than he remembered having a few moments ago.

"Pippa says dinner should be ready in a few minutes," he told them. Mrs. Weasley's look darkened tellingly for a second, but she then fixed it with a jovial smile.

"And where is your darling roommate?" she asked with a sense of forced pleasantry.

"Right here," Pippa said breezily, coming out of the kitchen and into the sitting room. She looked every bit the domestic goddess, having donned a pair of black boots and an apron. "I was just checking the turkey."

Right away, Bill felt the atmosphere in the room tighten. Maybe he had been mistaken; his mother really didn't seem to like Pippa at all.

"You made a turkey?" Mrs. Weasley asked inquisitively, the disbelieving undertone in her voice evident to everyone in the room.

"Yes," Pippa volleyed back cheerily. "Bill tells me that's what you usually have."

"How . . . nice."

"I thought so."

Bill was getting a little worried. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea. Pippa and his mother were practically at each other's throats, and they'd only been together for less than five minutes. He looked over at his dad, who seemed quite unconcerned with his wife's verbal sparring match with his son's roommate. Instead, he was gazing at the television, which was still playing the American Christmas movie.

"What's this, Bill?" he asked calmly.

"What, the movie, or the TV?" Bill answered, not sure which his dad meant.

"The movie," Mr. Weasley said, and added matter-of-factly, "I know what the tev-e-lision is."

"Oh, it's some American film," Bill told him, ignoring his father's mangling of the English language. "Pippa really likes it. It's been on all day."

"Bill, darling," Pippa said in an uncharacteristically sweet tone, as Mrs. Weasley flinched at her use of an endearing term regarding her son. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your family?"

"Right," Bill said. "You already know Mum and Dad, and this is my youngest brother, Ron. He's ten," Ron was standing behind his mother, looking quite shy. "Over there is Percy, he's 14," Bill pointed at the only child wearing glasses, "And these are Fred and George . . . They're 12 and they'll tell you who's who," he indicated the twins standing by his father, "And Ginny's the only girl. She's nine." When her older brother said her name, Ginny smiled and dropped the cutest curtsy ever. "And lastly, that's Charlie," Bill nodded to the only child left. "He's 16."

"17," Charlie corrected indignantly. "My birthday was two weeks ago."

"Right, whatever," Bill said dismissively.

"It's lovely to meet you all," Pippa said, grinning. "Bill, I'm going to go check on the food. Will you make sure everyone is comfortable? We should be ready to eat soon."

Bill nodded, and Pippa sashayed back to the kitchen. After everyone had settled down at the table, she came back, holding aloft with her wand what looked like half the grocery store. She directed it to the table, setting everything down without so much as a drop of gravy spilled. It was quite a spread, and Bill thought that if this didn't impress his mother, she was crazy.

Mrs. Weasley's face was unreadable, however, as Pippa sat down daintily beside Bill and flashed a smile her way.

"Let's eat!" Pippa said brightly.

All the platters and serving bowls made their rounds about the table, with everyone helping themselves to more food in one sitting than most of them ate in an entire year. Bill watched Pippa, and she was watching everyone else with a look of detached anticipation, especially Mrs. Weasley.

Once all the plates had gone around the table, everyone looked expectantly in her direction. Mrs. Weasley seemed to know that everyone was waiting for her decision about the food. Bill knew that everyone would like Pippa's cooking, but it would take his mother's acceptance of it for them to be able to tell her that.

The atmosphere around the table was pure tension and electricity. Everyone waited with baited breath as Mrs. Weasley balanced a bit of turkey precariously on her fork, toyed with it for a few seconds, and slowly put it in her mouth and chewed critically. After a few moments she looked at Pippa and said calmly,

"It's very good."

Bill was shocked. No one in the history of the entire world had ever earned a "very good" from his mother. That could only mean one thing:

Pippa was the Undisputed Goddess of Food.

"Thank you," Pippa replied graciously, taking a bite for herself.

Everyone around the table breathed a single sigh of relief, and began to eat as well. Soon, everyone was laughing and talking and eating jovially. Wine flowed freely, for those old enough anyway, and all had an enjoyable time. Well, Bill didn't so much, but that was only because his mother insisted telling every embarrassing story and anecdote she had in her arsenal, like the time when he was eight and had tried to "Vanish" Percy by using a mixture of Floo Powder and shoe polish, or when he was six and got his head stuck in the staircase railing because Charlie had dared him to get his head through, and then shrunken the gap between the rails. Pippa chuckled along with everyone else at his expense, and far from being angry with her, he was glad that his family had accepted her.

When Pippa got up to clear the table and fetch the dessert, Charlie, who had sat next to Bill only because Ginny was sitting next to Pippa, leaned over and said,

"Git."

"Oh that's nice, Charlie," Bill retorted. "Why am I a git today?"

"Because you've been living with someone as hot as her this whole time and you never once invited me over." Bill snorted and replied,

"Why would I do that to her? Anyway, you've been in school."

"You'd do that because I'm your brother and you love me," Charlie said. "And she's hot."

"Real mature," Bill said dryly. Charlie balked at this.

"I am mature!" he said quite childishly.

"Really?" Bill came back.

"Yeah!"

Pippa's return ended their verbal spat, and they were all sated by massive helpings of her handmade pumpkin pie. Mrs. Weasley, over the course of the meal, came to grow on Pippa, and by the end of the night, both the women were acting like they'd known each other for years. Bill couldn't have been happier.

After both dinner and dessert were over, Bill agreed to show his dad the movie on TV, and nearly everyone else joined in. Pippa assured Mrs. Weasley that she didn't need help cleaning up, and so retreated to the kitchen for some quality time with the sink.

"Do you need any help?"

Pippa turned around, and there was Charlie, leaning on the doorframe with a smile on his face.

"I just told your mother I didn't," she said. She had picked up on his growing crush from a mile away, and though she found it slightly adorable, if she was going to chase after any of the Weasley boys, it would be Bill. "Why don't you go watch the movie with everyone else?"

"Well, I feel bad just leaving you in here all alone," Charlie fawned.

"I'm fine," Pippa said shortly.

Bill came into the kitchen then, and quickly guessed what was going on.

"Charlie, get out of here," he said dismissively.

"Make me," his brother retorted. Pippa rolled her eyes, quite used to her presence reducing people to this kind of behavior.

"Boys," she said condescendingly. "Why don't you both go out into the living room and watch the movie? I'll be out there in a minute to join you."

"I was just coming in here to check on you, Pippa, there's no reason to snap at _me_," Bill replied.

"There will be if you don't get out of here in four seconds," Pippa said warningly. Bill knew enough about that tone to convince Charlie to leave. Soon after, Pippa gave up on hand washing the dishes. She whipped out her wand and Scourgified them before following Bill into the sitting room.

All of the Weasley family was there, eyes tuned acutely to the TV. Mr. Weasley was watching with the most rapt attention of them all. He was utterly amazed by the Muggle invention, and thrilled to death that he was getting to use one.

Pippa settled down on the floor next to Bill, who had given up his chair to Ginny because she'd wanted a place to sleep. Bill greeted Pippa with a kiss, and she noticed that Charlie grimaced when he did.

"You can come over here, too, Charlie," she said, patting the ground beside her. She felt bad about snapping at him earlier, and wanted to make it up to him.

The vindictive, greedy part of her also wanted the opportunity to curl up with two Weasley men at once.

Bill didn't quite approve.

"No he can't," he said quickly as Charlie made to leave his spot on the couch.

"Be quiet, Bill," Pippa snapped. "I said he can, so he can. Get over here, Charlie."

He didn't need telling again. Soon, Pippa was lazing back in the enviable position between Bill and Charlie Weasley, the former of who was pouting and the latter, smirking.

Pippa sighed dreamily, and snuggled closer to Bill, which made Charlie a little jealous. He tried to scoot closer to her, only to be shoved back by Bill. Charlie, obviously the more muscular of the two, didn't take that too well, and punched his brother's arm. Bill smacked Charlie, who was about to hit him back when Pippa looked up at him lazily and said,

"Stop."

"He hit me first!" Charlie said accusingly.

"And that makes you right?" Pippa rejoined. "Honestly, you're both acting like five year olds. Just sit down, shut up, and keep your hands to yourself, you limey Brits."

After that chastisement, the evening went by smoothly. Pippa eventually fell asleep cradled in both Bill and Charlie's arms, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Fred and George. When they saw Pippa's head nod in sleep, they both exchanged wicked grins, and slid over beside their older brothers.

"You know we won't let you forget this," Fred said seriously.

"And what, exactly, is 'this'?" Bill asked warily. He wasn't entirely sure that he even wanted to know.

"Your animal magnetism," George prompted.

"It's great blackmail," Fred added.

Bill rolled his eyes, and Charlie laughed.

"You're included in this, too," George told him.

"Don't even go there," Charlie warned. His younger brothers moved away; Charlie's temper was not something to be toyed with. "And anyway, I'm not exactly embarrassed to be seen sleeping with a model."

"You want to rethink your phrase usage there, dear brother of mine?" Bill said menacingly. Charlie looked at him, and said with a smug expression,

"Not really. Why?"

"I think you do," Bill prompted. Pippa stirred briefly, and snuggled closer to him.

"Well, I don't," Charlie said blithely.

"Yes, you do," Bill repeated.

"Just drop it," Pippa said, clearly bored, refusing to open her eyes to look at either of them. "Bill, stop being a possessive git, and Charlie, stop being perverted. It's not attractive, and you're not gaining anything by it . . . And, Fred, George: Charlie's right. There really isn't any blackmail here. I'm sexy and I know it."

And with that, she went back to sleep. The Weasleys around her were shocked into silence by her blunt phrasing.

"That's one way of putting it," Charlie said after a while. Bill smacked him and said,

"You're already on thin ice, Char. If you want to make another crack like that, you'd better know how to swim."

That kept them quiet for a while. When the movie was done, Mr. Weasley wanted to change the channel, but he didn't know how.

"Just use the remote, Dad," Bill said, unable to get up because he now had Pippa, Ginny, and Charlie passed out on top of him. Fred and George were asleep on the rug nearby, and Percy was curled up at the far end of the couch, glasses askew. Mrs. Weasley's head was resting on her husband's shoulder, but she was still awake. It was nearing 11:00.

"The what?" Mr. Weasley asked eagerly, perking up at the sound of more Muggle appliances.

"The remote," Bill repeated. "It's on the table over there, the little black rectangle thing."

"This?" Mr. Weasley said, holding something black and rectangular up hopefully.

"No, that's Pippa's make-up kit," Bill said. "The remote's next to it . . . Yeah, right there."

"How does it work?" Mr. Weasley asked excitedly, holding it the wrong way so that the operating end was facing his stomach.

"You just push the little buttons with the numbers on them," Bill said tiredly, closing his eyes. His father did, but nothing happened. "You're holding it wrong," Bill said. "Turn it around so the shiny part is in front . . . Yeah, like that."

Mr. Weasley spent the next five minutes happily flipping through the channels, while Bill fought the urge to drift off to sleep. Luckily, his mother noticed this, and announced that it was time for them to be heading home. She woke all of her kids up, and marshaled them all towards the door, simultaneously pulling her husband away from the TV and the remote.

"Thank you so much for having us," she said to Bill, standing on her tiptoes to kiss his forehead.

"Thank you for coming," he said, hugging her and all of his siblings, except Charlie (who refused), in turn. "It was lovely."

Pippa appeared by his side, smiling sleepily. She waved good-bye to everyone, accepted a hug from both Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and then leaned her head tiredly on Bill's shoulder. Charlie kept looking at her expectantly as all the farewells were being said, and finally she broke down and gave him a soft peck on the cheek, much to Bill's displeasure.

"When should we expect seeing you two next?" Mrs. Weasley asked as they started out the door.

"Oh, I don't know," Bill said. "I've got to work a lot, and Pippa's usually busy, too, but you can drop by whenever. I don't think we'd mind."

"All right," his mother said. "Now, Bill, you be good, remember?"

"Yes mum," he said dutifully. She smiled approvingly, and turned to Pippa to say,

"And you, darling, keep taking such good care of my little boy, all right?"

"Yes, Mrs. Weasley," she said with a smile. This sufficed the older woman, and after taking another good look at the pair of them, she sighed happily and sailed out the door. Bill closed it behind her with a resolute click, and leaned back on it heavily.

"God, I'm glad they're gone," he said.

"What do you mean?" Pippa asked incredulously. "You're family's amazing, especially your mother. I haven't met a nicer set of people in years! I can't believe you didn't want them to come!"

Bill laughed so hard and long that night it was a wonder he ever got to sleep.


	9. A Visit from Mr X

**Title:** Scattered

**Author:** Lady Dissent

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, just borrowing from the Great JKR.

**A/N:** Whoo, halfway done! This might be the first fic I ever finish (that's more than a oneshot). Sweet!

Reviews, comments, and intelligent critiques gladly accepted.

For rating, warnings, pairing, and other info, please see first chapter.

Chapter 9

A few weeks later, Bill was lying on the couch, watching some trashy soap opera with bad acting and whacked-out plotlines. He'd gotten off work early, and had no intention of moving to get or do anything once he'd settled down on the sofa. That was the only reason he hadn't changed the channel.

Really.

He heard the front door open, and made no effort to find out who it was.

"Bill, I'm home!" Pippa called from the hall. Bill heard the familiar clink of her purse on the counter, and the clack of her heels as she walked to the living room.

"So I noticed," he replied lazily, not looking away from the TV. A few seconds later, Pippa was sitting on the armrest, toying with Bill's hair. He looked up at her idly, a halfhearted smile on his face. She grinned back at him.

"So, how was your day?" she asked.

"Fine," he said, turning his attention back to the TV. "I got off early, so . . . " His sentence was interrupted by a yawn of monstrous proportions.

"Oh, is my poor Billy boy tired?" Pippa cooed, kicking off her stilettos and snuggling next to him on the couch.

"Don't call me that," Bill said absentmindedly, pulling her closer at the same time. "And yes, I'm tired."

"Do you want me to get dinner?" she asked, nuzzling him expectantly.

"I'm not all that hungry," Bill replied. Pippa brightened noticeably at this.

"So I don't have to eat anything?"

"Yes, you do," Bill said firmly, realizing his misstep at once. Pippa groaned, and rolled so her back was facing him.

"But I ate yesterday," she protested petulantly. "And the day before that, too. _Twice_."

"Good for you," Bill said, sitting up and stretching. "No reason to stop now."

With that, he got off the couch and headed towards the kitchen. Pippa stayed behind, and Bill knew she was preparing to throw a tantrum. He could hear her groaning and practically see her face contorting into a pout, even though she was in the other room.

"But I don't want to," she whined, sitting up and looking over the back of the couch at him.

"And I don't want to listen to your childish rants, but I do anyway," Bill retorted, pulling out the frying pan.

Pippa snorted and threw herself onto the couch again, muttering loudly about how stupid this was and how she was going to turn into a whale. Bill chuckled and asked,

"Pip, if you're a whale, then what am I?"

"A fathead," she snapped. "A big, stupid, British fathead. And a git. A limey, manky, socially handicapable git."

Bill rolled his eyes but left her alone. She was in a snit, and he knew not to bother her, lest he be mauled. He proceeded to make scrambled eggs, and was digging around for the bacon when Pippa stomped over to the counter and threw herself down in a huff.

"What are you making?" she demanded.

"Bacon and eggs," Bill replied.

"I don't want that," she spat.

Pippa had recently switched her tactics regarding food. She had mostly given up trying to refuse it entirely, and had now become the most finicky person Bill had ever met. Anything he made was the exact opposite of what she wanted.

"What do you want, then?" Bill asked patiently. He'd expected this. Pippa thought for a minute, and then said,

"Spaghetti."

"All right, I'll see if we have any pasta."

Bill put the bacon back, and began digging around the cupboards for a box of noodles. Pippa stayed where she was, head lazily resting on her hands, eyes following him as he moved around the kitchen. She was wearing a petulant pout, and Bill knew she was calculating her next move. Just as soon as he'd managed to recover a box of noodles, she said lazily,

"I want broccoli, too. Steamed, with little pieces of bacon in it like you made the other night."

"All right, I'll see what I can do," Bill said. So far, she wasn't being as bad as she could. He tried to be patient with her, figuring that if he yelled, she'd just yell back and they wouldn't get anywhere. "Do you want to help?"

"No."

It took Bill about half an hour to make both the spaghetti and the broccoli. Pippa did end up helping, but that was only with setting out the plates and silverware. She also got the drinks, and seemed pleased with herself about it. Bill decided not to point out that he had done most of the work, and sat next to her at the counter once everything was ready. They hardly ever ate at the dinning room table. Christmas had been the only time Bill could remember.

"Did you have a good day?" he asked casually as they ate. Pippa was doing more picking and fiddling than actual eating, but Bill was getting tired of badgering her about it.

"Yeah, I guess," she said, twirling a long piece of pasta around her fork idly. "The photographer kept calling me fat," she added pointedly before eating another bite.

"What do they know?" Bill said breezily. "I think you look lovely." Pippa arched her eyebrows and remained quiet for a few minutes before saying,

"He said it's probably why no one will hire me."

"That's insane," Bill said incredulously. "You're half the size of my sister, and she's nine."

"Yeah, well," Pippa began slowly. "I'm still not good enough."

"I think you are," Bill insisted. She smiled at him and shook her head.

"You're just saying that," she said bashfully.

"I don't say things that I don't mean," Bill said, but then added, "Except for that 'die with festering boils' thing I yelled at the TV earlier."

Pippa laughed.

She had a nice laugh. It wasn't the small, airy laugh that most girls he knew had, the kind that said "I'm stoo-pid". Her laugh was warm, pleasant, and bold. It could easily fill a room.

"I think you meant it," she said, eating with a little more vigor now.

"Maybe," Bill conceded. "It was pissing me off."

"Everything pisses you off, Bill," Pippa said.

"Not everything," Bill said, standing to clear away his empty plate. "You don't."

"Really?" Pippa asked. She, too, stood up and began to clear away the dishes, and was caught off guard by his comment.

"Really," Bill said. "Sure, you can be annoying and conceited sometimes, but I wouldn't have you any other way."

As she dumped her plate in the sink, Pippa said,

"You won't be having me at all, Billy boy."

"Don't be so sure," Bill said, moving behind her and wrapping her in a tight hug as he nuzzled her neck. "I have my ways."

"Oh really?" she said, leaning into him. They had become closer these past few weeks, and were no longer afraid of openly showing affection.

"Uh-huh," Bill whispered, nuzzling her again. She smiled and turned to face him.

"Are you going to tell me what these ways are?" she said playfully as she toyed with his hair.

"No, you'll have to find out for yourself," Bill said firmly. She smirked at him, and snuggled closer.

"Sounds like fun," she hissed, wrapping one arm around his neck and using the other one to play with his hair.

"It can be," Bill said, enjoying every minute of her cuddling. She was easily the most attractive woman he'd ever known, and he was ecstatic that she had feelings for him. "Would you like to see?"

Pippa didn't say anything, but the look she gave him in response could only be described as "smoldering." He grinned, and scooped her up, eliciting a small squeak, and walked with her to the living room.

The trashy soap opera was still on, but neither of them cared. They'd started kissing about halfway to the couch, and had yet to stop. Bill sat down, and Pippa climbed into his lap, still kissing every inch of him she could reach. Soon she abandoned that, and began to fiddle with the buttons on his shirt. She'd undone three of them before Bill noticed what she was doing.

Normally, this would have disturbed him, but tonight, he surprised himself by being positively okay with it. He wrapped his arms around her and leaned into a reclining position. Pippa straddled him, and whispered temptingly into his ear,

"Comfortable?"

"Yes, actually, I am," Bill replied calmly. Pippa's eyes flashed mischievously, and she started kissing him again, still unbuttoning his shirt.

They stayed that way for another ten minutes, exchanging sharp, witty retorts while trying to kiss the other's face off. Bill was fairly sure things would have escalated into something more if someone hadn't knocked on the door.

At the sound, Pippa's head snapped up, but after the initial shock passed, she looked back at Bill alluringly.

"Just leave it," she whispered silkily, kissing down his neck. He was tempted to, but when the knocking became louder and more insistent, he looked at her apologetically, kissed her one last time, and got up to answer the door. Pippa stayed back in a huff, glaring at him the entire time.

"Hello?" Bill said, opening the door. He was met with a dark suit, broad shoulders, and slicked-down black hair.

Mr. X.

Bill groaned inwardly, but forced himself to say, "Can I help you?"

"Good evening, Mister Weasley," Mr. X said, stepping past Bill and into the apartment without an invitation to do so. "I'm looking for your roommate, Miss Fitzpatrick. Perhaps you could tell me where she is?"

Bill glanced at the sofa, where Pippa had been seated a few seconds ago, only to find that she had left it and was now by his side.

"I'm right here, jerk ass," Pippa snapped rudely. "What do you want? I'm kind of busy right now."

Mr. X regarded her mildly, ignoring her profanity and tone.

"So you are," he said pleasantly. Pippa glared. "I was just here to check in, and remind you of a few things."

"I'm doing fine," she said, not meeting his eyes. "And I don't need reminding of anything, so you can leave now."

"Well, I can see that you're doing fine," Mr. X said in what he probably thought was a playful tone, nodding towards Bill, who flinched. He couldn't be sure if Mr. X was coming on to him or not, but either way, it was disturbing. The man continued, "But I can't leave just yet. You know that you're overdue, don't you?"

"Yeah," Pippa snapped fiercely, but added timidly, "Can we not talk about this now?" She looked shyly at Bill as she said this.

"Excuse me, I didn't catch that last bit," Mr. X said expectantly, even though everyone in the room knew he had.

Bill realized what was going on, and spoke up.

"She asked if you could leave," he said firmly, stepping between Mr. X and Pippa. "I'd appreciate it, too. You're breathing all my air."

"Mister Weasley," Mr. X began condescendingly, "What Miss Fitzpatrick and I are discussing has absolutely nothing to do with you, so _I'd_ appreciate it if you would leave it to us. _You_ are wasting my time."

"Pity," Bill shot back. "And here I was thinking that you were wasting mine."

Mr. X's eyes flashed at Bill's audacity, and he said deliberately,

"Now, Weasley, I understand that you are eager to continue wooing this lovely lady, though I daresay you'll fail, but what I have to tell her is far more important than your lustful rambles."

Pippa blanched at this, but Bill retorted,

"How would you know what we were doing? Were you watching?"

Mr. X didn't say anything, but Bill got that sickening feeling that he had been. It became awkwardly silent for a full minute.

"Well, Mr. X, I'm sorry to interrupt your entertainment for this evening," Bill said once he'd gotten his bearings back. "But I'm going to have to ask you to leave. Now."

"And you think that I'm going to listen to you?" Mr. X said, stepping closer, towering a good six inches over Bill. "I could break you in half."

"True, but I think you'll leave," Bill said calmly. He was used to intimidation tactics, thanks mostly to Charlie the Incredible Hulk, so standing up to this man wasn't very difficult. "I'll call the police if you don't."

"The police?" Mr. X snorted. "Oh, I'm trembling."

This scared Bill a little bit, having expected the man to grow pale like Charlie did when he threatened to tell Mom, but he didn't show it. He was contemplating his next move when Mr. X spoke again.

"Mister Weasley, I'll just take five minutes of your dear Pippa's time. Then you can have her back, to have and hold, safe and sound." Bill didn't say anything, so Mr. X turned to Pippa, who was glaring at him with fire in her eyes.

"Get out," she said, her voice low with anger.

"I just went over this with your roommate, darling," Mr. X said. "I'm not leaving." He reached out to her, but she smacked his hand away.

"Get the hell out of here," she began. "Or _I'll_ call the police."

"And why would that frighten me away?" Mr. X said calmly.

"Because I'm a pretty young girl, and they'll believe anything I say about a mean old man like you," Pippa said slowly, and then sniffed, her whole demeanor changing. She pretended to cry, and said quietly, "I told him to stop, officer, really, but he just wouldn't listen." She broke down in pretend tears for a few seconds, and then snapped instantly back to her angry, articulate self and said, "You see, I can be very . . . _convincing_."

Mr. X cottoned on, and nodded.

"That you can," he hissed. Turning to leave, he nodded once at Bill, and called over his shoulder, "I'll be seeing you later."

The door closed behind him with a snap. Bill stayed quiet for a second, and then rushed to her side, asking,

"Are you all right, Pip?" She nodded limply, and told him,

"Yeah, just tired now."

"Do you want to go to bed?" Bill asked, wrapping his arm around her. He half expected her to brush him away, snap at him, or ignore him completely. What he didn't expect was for her to nod, and lean on him.

"Yeah."

Bill walked her to the bedroom, helping her up the stairs as she stumbled.

Something from the encounter with Mr. X had wholly upset her. She shook the entire time as Bill helped her into bed and lay down beside her. She curled up next to him. Not romantically, but as though she was clinging to him, an act that was completely out of character for her. Bill didn't know why Mr. X had distressed her so, or even what he had wanted to tell her so badly.

All he knew was that man was in trouble _now_.


	10. Truth, part I

**Title:** Scattered

**Author:** R. F. Lupin

**Warnings:** strong foul language, typos, and writer's block

**Disclaimer:** Just borrowing from the Great JKR

**A/N:** Changed my pen-name. Hope it doesn't throw anyone off, and I'm too lazy to back and change the other "author" sections of the story. It's still me; trust me . . .

I've edited this a bit; I wrote it at about 10:00 pm, so there were some dumb mistakes I didn't see until now.

I decided that Bill needed to get angry. Enjoy!

Chapter 10

As the weeks passed into months, Bill never forgot this encounter with Mr. X. Pippa seemed to smother it, choosing to leave it locked away in her subconscious, and after her initial anxiety left her, she became her usual self again.

Bill and Pippa continued to become closer as winter melted away, and by the time March arrived, they were officially dating. They weren't having sex yet, but were damn close to it.

They were in love.

One drizzling Thursday evening, after Bill had come home from his desk job at Gringotts and Pippa had stormed out of _another_ photo shoot, they were lying together on the rug in front of the rain-splattered window. Pippa had put in a movie called "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", and they were half watching it, half power cuddling.

It was another one of those movies that Pippa could quote line-for-line.

A box of Wheat Thins was nearby, and the ground around them was littered with crumbs from their recent cracker battle. Also within arms' reach was a day-old glass of apple juice, from which they took turns drinking.

Pippa snuggled close to Bill, sighed, and said,

"I love you. You're so cuddly."

"Finally, my life's dream is realized," Bill replied, smiling down at her.

She smirked, but stayed next to him, one arm draped over his stomach while the other combed through his hair. Bill closed his eyes, and rubbed her back to encourage her. They were used to spending scandalous amounts of time like this, simply content to bask in the other's company, with only the occasional affectionate nip or peck breaking the stillness.

"Well, I should be getting to bed," Bill said regretfully a while later. Pippa made no response, and he soon discovered that she had fallen asleep, her head tucked at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. He couldn't help but smirk as he gathered her up to take her to bed. She didn't wake, simply curled against him, as though his presence was all she needed to feel safe.

He tucked her gently into bed, and lay down beside her. She sighed in her sleep, and instinctively rolled over so she was right beside him, her face drawn up in a peaceful smile as Bill wrapped his arms around her tenderly.

He was asleep within seconds.

It was still raining the next morning when Bill woke to find that Pippa was already up and moving. He could hear the shower running, and her off-key voice belting out something that sounded like a mix between the ballad "Amazing Grace" and "We Will Rock You" by Queen.

Bill smiled and curled up underneath the sheets. Even though she couldn't carry a tune in a titanium-reinforced bucket, she would sing her heart out, and that's what he loved about her.

Pippa emerged a few minutes later. Bill watched her as she flitted around, getting out her clothes and digging through her make-up box for just the right eye shadow. She was nearly dressed when she turned to him and asked,

"Don't you have work today?" He yawned and replied lazily,

"Yeah . . . I should get up, shouldn't I?"

"Seeing as you've only got half an hour to get ready, I think yes, you should," Pippa prompted, turning back to the mirror to put on her eyeliner. Bill stretched, hauled himself out of bed, and plodded over to Pippa. He watched their reflections as he wrapped his arms around her and planted a kiss on her cheek.

"Well, if I have half an hour," he began. "That means I have twenty five minutes to spend with you."

"Bill, you're not even dressed!" she said incredulously.

"That's what those extra five minutes are for."

Pippa groaned, but allowed him to kiss her mercilessly. After all, it was difficult to be angry at a man who was giving up his paycheck to cuddle with her. She made Bill stop only when he had ten minutes until he was supposed to be at work.

The day was another unremarkable one for Bill, with the same disgruntled goblin bosses and perpetually pissed off assistants. He wondered how much more of this he'd be able to take.

When he'd first been hired, Bill had heard talk of a possible opening for a Curse Breaker position. That was the kind of job he wanted; skulking down dank passageways, recovering centuries-old artifacts, living in ancient history everyday . . . Not to mention hexing and jinxing cursed mummies into bits. It sounded like bliss.

He asked about it casually, never getting a straight answer from anybody. No one seemed to think that Bill Weasley was "Curse Breaker" material. As far as he could tell, the job would most likely be handed to his superior, a one Mr. Andrew Anderson.

Bill often thought bitterly that Mr. Anderson and the Egyptian pyramids would get along fine; they had both been there at the beginning of time.

When 5:00 came, Bill was only too ready to go home. He Apparated back to his apartment without so much as a "good-bye" to any of his co-workers and slumped his way to the couch. Pippa was nowhere to be seen, which was good.

Bill had some thinking to do.

He still hadn't forgotten their encounter with Mr. X, all those months ago. He hadn't been able to get it out of his head, no matter how hard he tried.

Mr. X said she was "overdue."

_What did that mean? What did she owe Mr. X? How much did she owe him?_

But then Pippa had said she knew, but she hadn't seemed annoyed at all. That was incredibly out of character for her. She was always angry when people told her something she already knew.

_Why had it bothered her so much? Why had she looked sheepishly at Bill then? Why had Mr. X tried to hit on him?_

Bill tried to talk to her about the "Mr. X problem." She always got very defensive and snippety, and refused to tell him anything other than "It's none of your business." Each of these situations put him forcefully in mind of when he was trying to figure out her eating disorder, and he suspected this would be even harder to work out than that had been.

Unable to sit and ponder anymore, Bill sat up, and began to unwittingly evolve a plan. He wanted to know what was going on between his beloved Pippa and the loathsome Mr. X, and he didn't want to wait, or have to poke and prod to get the answer out of her.

In fact, he though to himself, he didn't have to. He had a right to know what was going on, being her boyfriend and everything. All he wanted to do was help; it wasn't like he was doing it to be mean. She should tell him, and if she wasn't going to, then he would find out himself.

Bill left the apartment quickly and quietly a few minutes later. He had been blessed with the ability to be incredibly stealthy when the occasion called for it. In his hand was a wrinkled piece of paper with an address scrawled on it, which had been copied out of Pippa's little black book. He'd found it under the entry "Satan," so he figured it was who he was looking for.

He'd grabbed only the leather coat she'd given him for Christmas, and this didn't do much to block the ever-present rain. He was vaguely aware that by the time he reached the address, he looked, and probably smelled, like a wet dog.

The building before him now was imposing and almost entirely made of concrete. Bill couldn't see any windows. The only door was the one right in front of him, a large iron slab with a crude handle jutting out at waist height. Fearing the worst, Bill swallowed what he hoped wasn't his last breath and shoved his way inside.

The interior was nothing like he expected. He had walked into a giant red room, where everything was plush and dark. Sconces on the walls illuminated only the top half of the room; for all he knew, Bill could have been standing on bodies. At the far end of the room, there was another door, flanked by two Neanderthals in black suits.

Bill approached them apprehensively. They looked like the type that would knock someone out just to evade a civilized conversation.

"Excuse me?" he asked tentatively, avoiding making eye contact with either of them. The one on the right addressed him with a slight nod of the head, and he went on. "I, uh . . . I was given this address by a friend? They said this place could help?"

Unfortunately, Bill's anxiety made everything he said come out like a question, which didn't go unnoticed by the guards. They cracked their knuckles menacingly, and Bill blanched.

However, before the Neanderthals could pound him to a bloody pulp, the door they were guarding swung open, and out stepped Mr. X.

Bill honestly couldn't decide whether or not he was happy to see him.

"Weasley, come," Mr. X said shortly, snapping his fingers as he motioned to the hallway beyond the door.

Bill disliked being treated like a dog, and went forward only to avoid being killed by the gorillas on either side of him. He followed Mr. X down the hall, which was pitch black, save for small pinpricks of light laid into the floor. They barely cast enough light to illuminate the hulking form of the three inches in front of him.

This corridor let out into a large office. It was expertly decorated, and if Bill hadn't known any better, he would have mistaken it for the abode of a distinguished old gentleman, not the makeshift "Bat Cave" of a perverted, wannabe CIA agent.

"Sit," Mr. X barked at Bill as he settled himself behind the cherry wood desk.

"I'm not a dog, you know," Bill said evenly, pointedly refusing to sit.

"Fine then," Mr. X said, lighting up a cigar. "Don't sit."

There was an awkward silence, and Bill finally lowered himself into one of the green leather chairs in front of the desk. He felt comfortable now. For some reason, Mr. X was nowhere near as frightening as the ape-men guarding the door, despite being twice their size.

"I assume you are here about your lady friend," Mr. X said, tapping the ashes off the end of his rather foul-smelling cigar.

"Yeah," Bill said shortly. "I want to know-"

"_Master_ Weasley," Mr. X cut in, clearly aggravated. "I will tell you only what I feel you need to know, nothing more."

Bill glared, sick of being lied to and told only half of the truth, and continued angrily,

"I want to know what the hell is going on between you and my girlfriend."

"Your girlfriend?" Mr. X said, sounding almost delighted. "And who is the lucky girl?"

"Don't pull this shit with me," Bill snapped. "You know full well who I'm talking about."

"I'm afraid I don't," Mr. X said blithely, clearly enjoying this. "What's her name?"

"Pippa," Bill spat. "The same Pippa you-"

"Ah, yes!" Mr. X chimed in, cutting Bill's rant short. "I was wondering when we'd get to her. You see, I'm afraid she's run out of time."

"Out of time for what?" Bill asked, still completely pissed.

"Hasn't she told you?" Mr. X said, feigning interest quite well. Bill shook his head tersely. "Oh dear. I thought she'd have at least told her _boyfriend_."

He placed extra emphasis on the last word, and Bill hated how childish it sounded coming from this man.

"Cut the crap, X," he spat, standing and leaning on the man's desk. "What the hell happened between you two?"

Mr. X leaned back leisurely, ignoring both Bill's actions and tone. He took another pull from his cigar, and only after savoring it for a few seconds did he turn back to the angry redhead and say,

"It was strictly business."

"What sort of business?" Bill demanded.

"Modeling business."

Bill glared, and Mr. X continued, grinning like a demented Cheshire cat. "I helped her when she first arrived in London. She was having a lot of trouble even getting her foot in the door, and I kindly volunteered to give her the boost she needed."

"By doing what?" Bill asked, his voice faltering despite his rage. Terrible, half formed thoughts whipped around his mind as Mr. X continued, that same sick smile on his face.

"I know people, Weasley. I know how to talk to them. I know what they want to hear. I can convince them to do things, things that I want them to do. All it takes is a little persuasion."

"You paid people off?" Bill said incredulously.

"I'm flattered, Weasley," Mr. X simpered. "You make it sound so honorable."

Awkward silence visited again, and then he continued.

"However, I can hardly be expected to do something for free. I 'persuaded' a few of my friends on the condition that Miss Fitzpatrick would pay me back, in full, within one year."

"So that's it?" Bill demanded. "She just has to pay you back? How much does she owe you, I'll-"

"No, no, Weasley," Mr. X waved his hand grandly as he lit up another cigar. "I lent the money to _her_, and I expect _her_ to pay it back. Besides, the amount left is far more than the mere pocket money you are bound to posses."

Bill's eyes flashed, but Mr. X ploughed on as though he hadn't noticed.

"Besides, I have yet to tell you the best part."

"The best part?" Bill repeated weakly. He was convinced he didn't want to know, but heard himself asking, "And what, exactly, is that?"

Mr. X grinned grotesquely, and said,

"We agreed that if Miss Fitzpatrick was unable to repay me monetarily, that I would certainly accept another form of payment for the debt."

"What . . . other form?" Bill asked, even though he was quite sure he already knew.

Mr. X's voice was rank with lust as he replied,

"Her body."


	11. Truth, part II

**Title:** Scattered

**Author:** R. F. Lupin

**Warnings:** foul language

**Disclaimer:** Just borrowing, but I'm not sure if JKR will want the Weasley boys back once I'm done with them.

**A/N:** Let's blame my lack of updates on my writer's block, the semester change, and the fact that I now have pre-calc, German 5, and AP US at the same time. Dang it.

For other information, please see previous chapters.

Chapter 11

Bill wasn't sure how he found his way back to his apartment. All he knew was that when he got there, he was still wet from the rain and angry about what he'd just discovered.

He pushed open the door, which Pippa never locked, and plodded inside. All the lights were on, and there was something soft and Baroque emanating from the radio, which led Bill to believe that Pippa was finally home. He didn't call out for her, knowing that she'd coming running to him anyway.

"Bill!"

Pippa came waltzing down the hallway, and even though he was still soaking, Bill felt her throw her arms around him. He could hear her babbling on about something that had happened at work that day, but it didn't matter to him now. All he could think about was what she had kept from him, how she had lied to him all this time.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Bill finally said, interrupting her rant.

"What?" she asked, her eyes still shining. She was in a good mood for once, and it hurt Bill to know that he was about to ruin it for her.

"About Mr. X," he said evenly, and watched her happy expression melt away into anger.

"You knew about him," she said testily. "You know he's, like, my stalker. I didn't hide that from you."

"No, but you hid the part about the money," Bill said, and Pippa backed away. She looked everywhere but at Bill as he continued, "You hid that from me, and I want to know why."

"Because you're not ready to know," Pippa spat.

"How am I not ready to know?" Bill demanded. "You told me just yesterday you'd tell me anything . . . Or was that another lie, too? Should I just stop believing everything you tell me? Is that what you want?"

"I didn't lie!" Pippa shouted angrily, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Really?" Bill said evenly. "I think you did."

"I didn't!" she insisted, quieter this time, and she paused to wipe away a few errant tears before she continued, "I just didn't think you'd want to know . . . I didn't want you to get upset or worried."

"For God's sake, Pippa!" Bill yelled, and he took a step forward as she backed away even more. "I'm dating you; of course I want to know! How else am I supposed to help you?"

Pippa's eyes flashed, and she spat,

"What help could you give me? It's not like you have money."

The words were out before she could stop herself, and the room went quiet for a full minute, save for the violin trilling softly out of the radio.

Bill spoke first.

"So that's what this is about? Money?"

"No," Pippa argued. "But it's true. You don't have money, and therefore, you can't help me."

"What do you mean I can't help you?" Bill said. "Of course I could help. It's not just the money, Pippa, I could do other things-"

"Like what?" Pippa cut in. "Offer me more money that I'm expected to pay back like he did? Pat me on the back and tell me it's okay when the world's ending like he would? Take advantage of me when I'm utterly depressed like everyone I know? No, Bill Weasley, I've gone down that road before, and I know exactly where it ends. I'm through accepting help from people. I can take care of myself."

"I'm not like that, Pippa, and you know it!" Bill insisted heatedly, feeling that he was quite above Mr. X when it came to charity. "I wouldn't do that!"

"Really?" Pippa said coolly. "How do I know?"

Bill thought for a moment, and then replied just as icily,

"Because honestly, if that was all I wanted from you, I'd have been gone months ago."

Pippa's mouth flew open, and she smacked Bill across the face.

"You jackass!" she screeched, winding up to hit him again.

"I'm not the one keeping secrets," Bill countered, and she stopped in mid-strike. "I just told you the truth, which is something you've never been able to do."

"Do you want the truth?" she asked, so calmly and slowly that Bill knew she was getting ready to drop the third atomic bomb.

"Yeah," he said evenly. "I want the truth."

"The truth is that I never meant to like you, Bill Weasley!" Pippa yelled. "I only asked for a roommate because I needed muscle around when Mr. X came! That's all you were ever supposed to be, a bodyguard! I never meant to fall in love with you or even get to know you! And you know what else?"

"What?" Bill sneered. Her words cut him deeper than he thought they would, and now, he didn't care what she said or did. It couldn't hurt him any worse.

"I don't think I love you anymore!" Pippa yelled. "You're so demanding and nosy, I can't stand it! I don't have to tell you everything, you know! It isn't your goddamn business what I do with my life!"

"You're right, Pippa," Bill said, his voice low with anger. As she got louder and more furious, he was getting progressively quieter and indignant. "How dare I care about you? How dare I offer to help you? My God, how do I even sleep at night knowing I've done something as horrible as fall in love with someone as perfect and self-reliant as yourself?"

Pippa didn't reply immediately, and turned away in a huff. She stormed to the stairs, and stomped up every one of them. Bill followed, quite sure that she had something more to say to him.

When she reached the door, Pippa turned around and yelled,

"You can forget sleeping next to me tonight. God knows I might wake up pregnant if I let you."

"I wouldn't think of touching you," Bill said evenly. Pippa sneered, obviously affronted, and ran into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

After she was safely locked behind the glass door, Bill sank onto the couch, his head in his hands. That hadn't gone how he'd wanted it to _at all_. Now he had to start at square one _again_, and this time, he didn't think that they'd be able to put this past them. Pippa wouldn't come crawling back to him, he knew that much, and he was too hurt by everything she had said to be the one to apologize first.

For all he knew, it was over.


	12. Family

**Title:** Scattered

**Author:** R. F. Lupin

**Warnings:** very bad language towards the end

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, just borrowing.

**A/N:** Weasleys kids are amazing!

I've written the ending, so yeah . . . It's wrapping up here. However, Super Smexy Snuffles is writing a fic that goes along with this one (they're like peanut butter and jelly), so if you wanted to read that, I would totally recommend it.

I tried to make this whole "love triangle" argument believable, so let me know how that worked . . . Hint, hint, leave a review.

For more info, please see previous chapters.

Chapter 12

Bill had déjà vu when he woke up the next morning, sprawled across the Couch of Infinite Discomfort, waiting for the monster that was his roommate to emerge and devour his soul. He yawned and rolled over, turning his back on the blazing sunlight, concentrating hard on the smell of the leather upholstery. He tried to forget the fight last night, but that was like trying to stop Niagara Falls with a cheap plastic bucket.

Pippa woke up some time later, and began to clatter around in the kitchen after she came out of the bedroom. Bill pretended to be asleep, but he was sure that it didn't fool her. After about twenty minutes, he sat up and looked over the couch at Pippa.

She was already dressed, which Bill took to mean that she had a photo shoot today, and was leaning against the counter with a look of such detachment that Bill knew it had taken years of practice to perfect. Held to her lips was a glass of something brown, which might have been sludge or one of the protein shakes she had recently become a fan of. She cast a weary glance in his direction, and after rolling her eyes as though his very existence offended her, she asked haughtily,

"Don't you have work today?"

"Yeah," Bill said. "Why?"

"It's almost ten," Pippa drawled lazily. As Bill leapt off the couch, she added, "I thought you usually started at nine."

"I do!" he said angrily, searching desperately for his shoes. The goblins were strict about punctuality, and Bill knew he would be lucky to escape today with his life now that this had happened. "Why didn't you wake me up?" he demanded, grabbing his boots from the corner where he'd kicked them last night.

"I didn't know you wanted me to."

Any thoughts he'd had about apologizing to her evaporated right then, and having finally wrestled his feet into his shoes, Bill charged past her without another word.

Luckily, someone else had been slacking off that day too, so he managed to get through the day with only a lecture and a few "bad marks" on his record. The goblins also made him take the morning shift, which was actually a punishment because Bill got paid by the hour. He found himself trudging home around 1:00, desperately trying to figure out how he was going to explain this to Pippa.

Since he was still peevish about how she'd gotten him in trouble in the first place, he decided he was going to make her feel guilty, or at least try. When he reached his apartment, he shoved open the door and put on the best angry face he could manage. He was expecting to find Pippa alone and sullen, reading one of her trashy romance novels to while away the time.

It was a huge surprise, then, to come home and find not only a bright, smiling Pippa, but also his younger brother Charlie, beaming and looking thoroughly pleased with himself.

"What are you doing here?" Bill finally managed to choke out, forgetting his plan to guilt trip Pippa into next week.

Charlie grinned and replied,

"Visiting."

"You . . . You're supposed to be in school!" Bill stammered, gesticulating awkwardly. "How did you get here?"

"Apparated," was Charlie's one word response. Pippa beamed, as though this was something to be proud of.

"What? You-" Bill began, but Pippa cut in, her tone uncharacteristically honeyed.

"If you would be quiet for a second, _William_, I'm sure Charlie would be happy to fill you in."

Bill, still quite upset with Pippa, just glared at her and then looked to his brother.

"Well?" he demanded. "Explain yourself."

"You know how sixth years take that Apparation test?" Charlie began. Bill nodded tersely. "Let's just say I failed. I was supposed to end up in some place called Clapham, or Clapshire or Crapsvillie or something, but I ended up in London. Since it'll take the exam wizards a while to figure out where I am, I thought it would be nice to pay a visit to my dearest older brother and his darling roommate." Charlie finished his explanation with a beaming smile, as though this would somehow make up for his complete lack of maturity.

Bill couldn't think of anything to say, and since he decided not to point out that he was Charlie's _only_ older brother, he just stared blankly at both his brother and Pippa, who added,

"And look, William! He brought us a friend!"

Bill looked down, and sure enough, there was a large ginger tabby cat winding its way around his legs, purring loudly. On closer inspection, Bill saw that part of its ear had been ripped off, and it was sporting several facial scars.

It was a stray cat.

"So let me get all this," Bill began, looking warily at his brother. "Not only did you fail your test, you walked all the way through the bad part of London, picked up a stray cat, and dumped it at my place?"

"I wouldn't describe it that way, but sure," Charlie said.

"What the hell are you on?" Bill shouted. The cat spooked and tore across the apartment, hissing. Pippa glared at Bill, as though scaring the cat was a criminal offense, and chased after it, cornering it under the couch. As she attempted to lure the cat out of its hiding place, Charlie answered his brother.

"I'm not 'on' anything, Bill. I just thought you wouldn't mind seeing me. You said at Christmas I was welcome to drop by any time, remember?"

Bill did, in fact, remember this, but he said,

"You know what I meant, Charlie! I didn't want you to cut school! I thought you were smarter than that!"

"Don't listen to him, Charlie," Pippa said, returning to the group with the giant lunk of a cat in her arms. "He's just telling lies. We're happy that you came to visit. Now, what do you think we should call this adorable little kitty? He needs a name, doesn't he?"

Bill could do nothing but gawk at Pippa's audacity, and watched as she and Charlie made their way to the couch, settling on it with the cat between them.

It was bad enough that she had called him a liar, after what they'd been through last night, but as he watched them sitting there, Bill realized just how vindictive Pippa was prepared to be.

They both knew that Charlie had one of the world's biggest crush's on Pippa, and that he would do damn near anything to get her to notice him. And until now, Bill had thought that Pippa was respectable enough not to lead him on, but as he watched her flirting with him and giving him all the right kinds of signals, Bill realized that she was out for blood.

The argument that they had had last night had truly hurt her, and she was willing to go to any lengths to make Bill pay, even if it meant hurting someone else who hadn't even been involved.

Bill didn't know what to do, but he decided that he couldn't just wait around for his younger brother's psyche to be damaged beyond repair. He stomped to the couch, and sat himself beside Pippa, determinately trying to catch her eye.

"Well, Charlie," Pippa was saying in a singsong voice that she must have stolen from someone else. "I just can't decide between Finnegan or Seamus. What do you think?"

"Why don't you just call him Finnegus and be done with it?" Bill spat, unable to control himself.

"I don't remember asking you," Pippa chirped, albeit quite venomously, petting the cat and refusing to look at Bill. "In fact, I don't remember you being involved in this at all."

"Yeah?" Bill began, seizing his chance to tell her to back off. "I don't remember Charlie being involved, either, so leave him out of it. Whatever you're angry about, it has to do with me, so just let him alone."

"Excuse me?" Charlie interrupted. "What are you talking about? I'm a part of whatever 'this' is, _William_, so butt out!"

"You have no idea what I'm talking about, _Charles_," Bill shot back. "So just be quiet and wait for the Ministry wizards to find you."

"Like hell!" Charlie shouted. "Don't try to order me around, Billy boy, because it won't work!"

"I'm not trying to order you around, I am!" Bill yelled back, ignoring the derogatory use of Pippa's pet name. "Keep out of it!"

Pippa forced herself between them, shoving the feuding brothers apart, and said calmly,

"Boys, boys. Really, there's no need to fight. Bill, leave your brother alone, and Charlie, you can just sit with me."

Both Weasley boys stared at each other for a second longer, and it was Bill who sat down first. Charlie followed, still glaring at his older brother contemptuously.

"I like Finnegan better," he said to Pippa after a while, petting the cat as it pranced its way onto his lap. Pippa beamed, agreed, and shot a nasty glance at Bill.

"See, William," she began. "Your brother knows how to behave. Why don't you?"

Bill snorted and refused to answer. He couldn't decide who he was more furious with: his vindictive roommate, or his sycophantic brother.

"Do you want tea?" Bill asked a few minutes later. Charlie and Pippa had finished naming the cat Finnegan, which was determinately avoiding him.

"Yes," Pippa answered stiffly as Finnegan rubbed his head on her arm. "Charlie, would you like any?"

"Yeah," Charlie mumbled, still avoiding eye contact with his brother.

Bill got off the couch and stomped his way to the kitchen, digging out the kettle and tea bags. He filled the kettle and slammed it onto the stove, listening covertly to Pippa and Charlie's ongoing conversation.

"Your brother's awfully moody today, Charlie," Pippa was saying. "I wonder why."

"He gets like that sometimes," Charlie said in what he probably thought was a nonchalant tone, though Bill thought he just sounded desperate. "It was always a pain at home."

Bill gritted his teeth, and stared at the reddening burner of the stovetop to keep himself from yelling something obscene at his younger brother.

Strangely, though, he found himself even angrier with Pippa. How could she lead Charlie on like that? What had he ever done to her? Bill, at this particular point in time, felt a greater loyalty to his blood relative than the woman who he'd claimed to love, and was determined to protect the former from the vicious plans of the latter.

"I know what you mean," he heard Pippa say coyly. "He's _so_ unstable."

That was the last straw.

"I'm unstable?" Bill shouted disbelievingly, coming out of the kitchen. "_You're _calling _me_ unstableWho's the one that emotionally explodes every time she's offered help? Who's the one that hides every last detail of her life from people who care about her? Who's the one that had a god damn _eating disorder_?"

Although Charlie looked confused, there was nothing but pure rage seething out of Pippa's eyes. She didn't look at Bill, but instead focused on the younger Weasley, saying with an icy drawl,

"See what I mean, Charlie? The littlest thing sets him off . . . I'm so glad you came over. It's nice to have someone _decent_ to talk with for a change."

"No problem," Charlie said casually, and he beamed as Pippa planted a kiss on his cheek. "I knew you'd come around to me. I'm obviously the better one."

Pippa laughed, and it was the airiest, most vapid thing Bill had ever heard. It was also all that he could take. He grabbed Charlie by the shoulder, despite his protests, and hauled him into the front hall.

"Are you a basket case?" Bill demanded, letting go of his younger brother. "Are you _that_ retarded that you can't see she's just using you?" Pippa had followed them, and could hear everything, but no one seemed to care.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Charlie yelled, turning red all the same. "You're just jealous because she likes me better than you!"

"Why would I be jealous of someone as mental as you, _Charles_?" Bill spat. "She's pissed with me, and is using you to make me jealous. She doesn't even like you! My God, Charlie, even Ginny could spot that one from a mile away!"

"Shut your face," Charlie said, but it was obvious he knew what Bill said was true. Pippa butted in here, shoving Bill back and saying icily,

"Well said, Bill! I couldn't have worded it better myself."

She gestured wildly at Charlie, who against his will, was quite obviously beginning to cry. Bill stopped for a second, and then realized the power of what he'd said. He slammed his face into his hands, and kept it there for a full minute.

"I didn't mean that the way it sounded," he said softly to Charlie after a while.

"Right, Bill," he answered bitterly. "You never mean anything you say. Maybe I should just stop listening to you, since all you ever tell me is a lie."

Bill was awkwardly aware of how much that sounded like what he'd shouted at Pippa last night, but he answered,

"You know that's not what I meant, Charlie. I just-"

"Why don't you just do the world a favor and keep your big fat mouth shut, Bill?" Pippa cut in, hands on her hips. Bill rounded on her.

"Shove off, Pippa!" he shouted. "This is all your fault anyway!"

"_My_ fault?" she said, affronted. "Why is it my fault that you're a shitty brother?"

Bill glared and pushed her against the wall, saying in a low, guttural voice,

"Don't you ever say that again. _Ever_." He took a deep breath, continuing, "And this is all your fault because if you had been straight with me, we never would have argued, and you wouldn't have had the chance to be a bitch to my younger brother."

Pippa shoved him back, much harder than he thought she could, and said just as angrily,

"That's right, let's play the 'blame game,' I love that one. It solves everything! . . . You just spent the whole afternoon calling him retarded, but I can't be nice to him? I fail to see the logic."

"I'm his brother, I'm allowed to call him on his shit," Bill said. "You, however, have no right to mess with him like that." Here, he let go of her, and turned back to Charlie, saying, "And that's why I said what I did. I didn't want her to hurt you, because God knows, she would."

Charlie, who had remained silent through the entire exchange, was regarding Bill with a mixed expression of rage and admiration. He said after a while,

"So you thought you'd just be the world's biggest git? That was your master plan?"

Bill groaned, and tried to explain himself, but just as he opened his mouth, the kettle on the stove rang out with a piercing shriek. No one moved to get it, and three second later, a knock came on the door.

"I suspect that's for you," Bill said tersely, and moved to answer the door. As he swung it open, three Ministry officials swept into the apartment without even waiting for an invitation.

"Charles Weasley?" one of them asked briskly, and Bill nodded towards his brother, who didn't even put up a fuss as they escorted him from the building.

After the door closed behind them, Bill looked at Pippa. He couldn't remember a time when she had looked move livid. The atmosphere around them was pure electricity, and it was as though one wrong word would set the whole place ablaze.

"Should I even try to explain myself?" Bill asked warily.

"No," Pippa said curtly, leaving the hall to attend to the screaming kettle. "I'm going to have to agree with Charlie, though. You _are_ the world's biggest git."


	13. Pippa's Big Break

**Title:** Scattered

**Author:** R. F. Lupin

**Disclaimer:** Just borrowing.

**A/N:** Bill Weasley is the coolest freaking person ever. Charlie's pretty sweet, too.

Leave a review! Please! –does puppy dog eyes-

Warnings, rating, pairings, and all that jazz can be found in earlier chapters.

Chapter 13

Bill received a Howler from his mother that night, regarding Charlie's decided lack of responsibility that afternoon. The violently scarlet envelope exploded the second Errol dropped it on the table, giving Bill no chance to open it for himself, and the smoldering ashes left a burn mark that refused to leave. He moved the flowered centerpiece over the scorched wood, and hoped to God that Pippa wouldn't notice.

Bill found he was still pissed at his roommate and not his sibling. He had honestly intended to apologize about the fight in a timely fashion, but her complete disregard for Charlie's feelings had touched one of his few raw nerves. He couldn't stand it when people messed with his family, and until she admitted and rectified her mistake, an apology was out of the question.

The two stayed locked in the bitter battle for weeks. Pippa became a veritable Ice Queen, refusing to acknowledge that Bill even existed. Whenever they came into close proximity with the other, they would simply look way, gulping back the urge to apologize. Both were too proud to admit their mistake, and too foolish to realize how damaging their indifference was to the once beautiful relationship they had shared.

Bill began to understand that if they let this go on, there would be no going back.

* * *

Sometime in early April, Bill was filling out a report for work, trying all the while to think of something he'd rather be doing that would give him an excuse to stop. He had a cheese sandwich close at hand, and would take a bite in between sighs of aggravation. Pippa had stopped making him food, so his meals had to spring from what he knew . . . Which wasn't much. He'd been living on frozen waffles and canned soup for the past month. 

Pippa was due home from her photo shoot at 6:00. She had been going on about this one for the past week, and had very high expectations for it. From what Bill had been able to gather, the head of an important American fashion magazine was going to be there, and Pippa aimed to impress. He had no doubt she would, because even though he was royally pissed at her, he always thought she looked amazing.

At 6:17, the front door swung open, and Pippa danced through it, looking happier than she had in weeks. She sighed dreamily as she dumped her purse on the counter, humming something Bill didn't recognize. He heard her banging around in the kitchen, and knew she was making tea, and that he wasn't welcome to have any.

"Aren't you going to ask about my day?" she called from the kitchen. Her tone was casual, which was an unexpected change from the cold formality Bill had become accustomed to.

"No," he replied frankly. Even when they had been speaking with each other, the topic of Pippa's workday had been avoided.

'_Why would that change now?'_ he thought to himself, taking another bite of his sandwich.

Pippa emerged from the kitchen, having set the kettle on the burner, and sat down at the table. She toyed idly with a few of the Gringotts forms as she said,

"Well, I'm going to tell you anyway."

"You do that," Bill said distractedly. Not only was he very busy, he had no intention of speaking civilly to her ever again.

"You know how I said that the editor of Vogue was going to be at the shoot today?" she began calmly, flipping boredly through the papers.

Bill grunted noncommittally, which Pippa took to mean yes.

"Well, she talked to me afterwards," she said, becoming noticeably excited. "And guess what?"

"What?" Bill said as dryly as he could.

"She offered me a contract with the magazine!"

Pippa was so excited that she obviously forgot she was still angry with Bill and threw her arms around him, asking,

"Isn't that great?"

As he shook her off, he replied,

"Yeah, great . . . Would you leave me alone? I have to finish this by tomorrow and you're not helping."

Far from being put off by his rude dismissal, Pippa beamed and said cheekily,

"Still mad at me, are you?"

"Yes, Pippa. Your skills of deduction are breathtaking," Bill snapped. Throughout the course of their argument, he had discovered that he was the king of biting retorts. "I'm still mad at you."

She smiled, still breezing through his papers, and said in a singsong voice,

"I don't think you will be much longer."

"Why?" he demanded irritably.

"Because . . . " Pippa drew her explanation out as long as she could, like it was a piece of gum that she could wind around her finger. "I signed the contract with Vogue, and that means I just came into a sizeable chunk of money . . . I can't remember the exact figure, because it's freaking huge, but it's enough to pay back Mr. X . . . And the hospital bill for the cardiac arrest it'll cause him."

She was grinning, but Bill found it hard to share in her enthusiasm.

"You think that's the only reason I'm mad at you?" he said slowly, setting aside his work. "The money?"

Pippa nodded, but added,

"And lying to you, but . . . "

"So your completely selfish and careless treatment of my younger brother couldn't possibly factor into this?" Bill cut in pointedly. "I'm just upset because you can't manage your checkbook; that's what you think?"

Pippa's face fell, and she snapped,

"God Bill! I thought you were over that!"

"No, sorry. I'm not," he said bluntly. "I get upset when people mess with my family. It's weird, I know. But there you have it."

"Look, I already apologized for that!" Pippa said testily. Her euphoria was fading quickly, and she was becoming the viper again.

"No you didn't!" Bill yelled, and she flinched. "You never apologized! You never once gave the slightest hint that you were sorry for any of this!"

"Well, I meant to!" she yelled back. "And this wasn't all my fault, you know! You haven't been perfect, either!"

Bill made to shout back at her, but stopped. She was right. He was just as much to blame for this whole mess as she was. Instead of replying, though, he grunted unintelligibly and turned back to his work, ignoring her.

Just because he recognized that this was his fault as well didn't mean he was going to do anything about it.

Pippa was quiet for a few more seconds, and then said timidly,

"Can I ask you a favor?"

"What could you possibly have the nerve to ask me to do?" Bill snapped.

"Come with me . . . ?" she said sheepishly.

"With you where?" he prompted impatiently.

"To Mr. X's office," she began quietly. "I have to give him the money in person, and I . . . I want you there with me, in case something goes wrong."

"Be your bodyguard, basically?" Bill said.

"Well . . . yeah."

Bill thought for a minute. Pippa rarely asked for things so nicely, and she was apparently telling the truth, for once. He nodded his assent, and said evenly,

"If I do, you have to apologize to Charlie."

"Of course!" Pippa said earnestly. She got up from the table, and crossed the apartment to the bedroom. "I just have to get into something more . . . intimidating."

Bill didn't want to know what this meant, but found out a few minutes later when Pippa emerged from the room. She had discarded her trendy, expensive jeans and shirt for the tightest skirt she owned, shiny black pumps that were a marvel of engineering, and a shirt cut so low that Bill wondered subconsciously if it was even legal.

Sighing, he got up from the table, and as they both grabbed their jackets from the peg in the hall, Pippa looked over at him and said,

"You ready?"

"Yeah, why not?" Bill said, shrugging. He was trying not to think of how appealing the outfit made her look. She smirked and replied,

"Then let's do it."


	14. Payback vs Apology

**Title:** Scattered

**Author:** R. F. Lupin

**Warnings:** foul language, sex

**Disclaimer:** Just borrowing, but I'm not sure JKR will want the Weasley boys back when I'm finished with them . . .

**A/N:** The infamous Chapter 14! . . . Okay, so it's only infamous to me.

Once again, I'm going to recommend Super Smexy Snuffles's story "Dratted Death Eaters." She's bummed that no one's been reviewing it, and so am I because I'm her beta, so I'm going to try to convince some of you guys to go check it out.

Reviews for me too, please? -shakes tin can full of pennies-

Chapter 14

Pippa's heels clacked crisply on the pavement as she and Bill made their way to the concrete building that housed Mr. X's office. Neither one said anything, but Pippa's lips were set in a defiant sort of smile, and she walked with such a confident stride that Bill knew she was plotting something big. They cleared the ten-block stretch in about five minutes, and when they reached the massive building, they let themselves inside.

The same two Neanderthals were guarding the door, but this time, they simply leered as the redhead and brunette walked past. One of them gave a low whistle as Pippa swished by, but she paid no attention. Her mind was set on flaying Mr. X, and the childish catcalls of pseudo-humanoids meant nothing to her.

When they reached the end of the corridor, Pippa shoved the double doors open and strode through determinedly, not pausing to wait for Bill or let him go through first. She cast a powerful sort of aura that had Bill entranced, and he nearly took a blow to the face from the door because he was busy watching her instead of it.

Something told him that by the end of the night, they were going to make up.

Mr. X was sitting behind his desk, talking to another gorilla-sized guard and smoking another nasty smelling cigar. He barely flinched at Pippa's dramatic entrance.

"Ah, Miss Fitzpatrick," he said lightly, gesturing to the leather chair before the desk. The guard lumbered to a corner and stood there silently, watching the following exchange with a disturbingly vacant expression. "Have a seat."

Pippa, like Bill, refused to sit, and instead replied,

"No thank you. I won't be here long."

Mr. X smiled, and Bill swore that he saw an eerily wolfish glint in the man's eyes as he said,

"Of course. You're just here to . . . repay me."

His mind was obviously still in the gutter, while Pippa's most certainly wasn't.

"Yes, I am," she said coyly. Bill couldn't help wondering what the hell she was doing, playing into his hands like that.

"And I see that you've brought Weasley along with you," Mr. X said, nodding briefly to him. The gorilla leered at him from the corner.

"I thought I'd need some moral support when all this was over," she said, and Bill cottoned on. He decided then that Pippa was a masterful manipulator of people, and that he couldn't wait for her to turn her hand and bring X's fantasy crashing down.

Mr. X, however, was either very stupid or just going along with her little game, because he stood and moved around his desk, arm extended towards her.

"You don't have to worry," he said, unable to keep the lust out of his voice. "I'll be gentle."

Pippa arched her eyebrow, and the faintest hint of smile danced across her lips. She took a step forward, and delving into her pocket, she took out a simple white envelope. After waving it before Mr. X's eyes, which had strayed from her face and were staring quite rudely at the plunging neckline of her shirt, she slammed the packet down on the desk just as he was reaching for her waist.

The sound shocked him more than anything, and he stared down at the envelope for a full minute, arm still crooked awkwardly around Pippa's skinny midsection.

"What? . . . What is this?" he stammered, fighting to control himself as he picked up the small envelope.

"I thought it was obvious," she replied. "Payment."

Mr. X's brow furrowed for a moment, and he tore open the packet incredulously. Bill happily watched the color fade from the older man's face. From his shadowy corner of the Bat Cave, the guard made to move, but a quick gesture from Mr. X stopped him.

"I think that was the amount we agreed on," Pippa said primly.

Mr. X saw an advantage, and said snippily,

"No, I'm afraid not. I wanted ten percent interest, compounded monthly."

"Ten percent?" Pippa said, feigning shock. "You're cheaper than I thought. I gave you twenty . . . Keep the change."

Bill didn't exactly know what they were talking about, but he suspected Pippa had the upper hand. She smirked at X once more, and turned to leave, saying briskly,

"I think that's it then."

She was at the door, Bill close behind her, when Mr. X spoke.

"So that's it then?" he repeated calmly. Pippa turned, gave him an appraising sort of look, and nodded smartly. "You think you've won, don't you?"

She bobbed her head again, and a grotesque smile spread across Mr. X's already aesthetically deficient face.

"Well, you haven't," he said, sounding deranged. "I won. I always win . . . Remember that, Miss Fitzpatrick . . . I _always_ win."

"Right . . . " Pippa said, as though she was humoring a temperamental toddler. She turned to Bill, smiled, and then addressed Mr. X and his gorilla guard.

"Sniff you jerks later."

Bill followed her as she left the room, closing the doors behind them with a defiant snap.

Pippa took long, direct strides, breezing past the guards and out onto the sidewalk in a matter of seconds. Bill had to jog to catch up, which was amazing considering her choice of shoes. He met up with her on the street corner outside the office, and leaned heavily on the electric lamppost, rather winded from his sprint. He caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye, and he was surprised by her expression.

She was looking up at the murky skyline, the stars being obscured by the London smog, and smiling with a faraway look that he'd never seen her wear before. The streetlight cast an orange glow around her, and threw her shadow out across the pavement like a decorative train. As she stood there, slim legs planted firmly on the ground and hands defiantly in her pockets, Bill was hard pressed to remember why he was still mad at her.

She looked down at Bill then, and said with a small smile,

"Sorry."

"Don't worry about it," he said, standing up straight. "I was always slow when it came to running."

"Not that," Pippa said quietly, starting across the street. "I meant about everything else. The fight and, you know, not telling you . . . "

"Oh," Bill said, falling in step beside her. "'S all right, I suppose. You should really apologize to Charlie, though. He's still upset about it."

"I will," she said. "But he's not here right now, and you are. I need to apologize to you . . . It's just, I never had anyone really care about me before, and I'm not sure how to do this whole 'relationship' thing."

"That's not an excuse to be a bitch," Bill replied, knowing that it sounded harsh. "I told you that you could trust me."

"Yeah, well, I have trust issues," Pippa told him, shoving her hands deeper into her coat pockets. Bill snorted; that was one of the biggest understatements he'd ever heard. "But can you blame me?" she went on, looking up at him earnestly. "All my life, everyone I've ever known has just tried to use me. I mean, honestly, Bill, you saw how that whole thing with Mr. X was . . . It sounds stupid, but I feel like you're the first person who ever looked at me and saw past the pretty shell and wanted to know what was inside . . . Not, like, in a sexual way like everyone else, but like you wanted to know who I was . . . Like I was a real person or something."

"Well, you are a real person," Bill said carefully.

"Yeah, I know," Pippa began, becoming more confident. "But, I don't know, I was afraid of what that meant. You liking me, I mean. It meant that I had to care about you, too, and I don't know if you noticed this, Bill, but I don't really care about most other people. I'm heartless on the inside, and it's hard for me to become attached to people and, you know, make friends. I want to blame it on my modeling, but honestly, a lot of it is just how I am. If other people are just going to use me, then I'll use them right back . . . It really meant a lot to me that you were willing to see past all that, and that you wanted to love me for who I was. You were the one person who ever cared."

She took a deep breath here, and looked away.

"That's why it hurt so much when you said that I lied to you, because I didn't. I just couldn't tell you, Bill. It was _me_ that wasn't ready, not you. I just didn't want to loose you, because you meant so much to me, and somehow, it was easier to shove you away than to pull you closer and admit that I was wrong . . . "

Bill was quiet. He looked down at Pippa, and now he didn't see the confident woman he'd seen under the streetlight; instead, he saw a small, vulnerable woman who just needed someone to lean on. Gently, he pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head.

"It's all right, Pippa," he said softly as she laid her head on his shoulder. "No one's perfect, us least of all . . . I just thought you knew me better than to think I'd use you like that is all. What made me so angry was that you lumped me in with people like X, people who didn't care and just wanted . . . I don't know, sex."

They had arrived at their apartment building now, and were slowly walking up the eight flights of stairs to their floor. Neither one said anything until they'd reached the door of the apartment and gone inside.

As Bill hung up his and Pippa's jackets, she flicked on the light and said calmly,

"So you're saying that you don't want to have sex with me?"

"No," Bill said, a little too quickly. "Not right now, but, you know . . . eventually."

Pippa laughed, and spread herself out on the couch. She kicked her pumps off as Bill came closer, knowing full well how revealing her shirt had become. As he sat down beside her, she said,

"Define 'eventually.'"

Bill couldn't quite stifle his smirk as he replied,

"Well, you know, whenever you're ready."

She laughed again, and just as Bill was leaning down to lay next to her, she sprang from the couch, and went to the radio and turned it on. Instantly, the room was filled with the muted tones of a violin, and Pippa sighed happily.

"Oh, I love this song!" she said, sashaying back to the couch. Bill enveloped her in an intimate embrace as she lay down, asking softly,

"Which one is it again?"

"Pachelbel's Canon in D," she mused, snuggling closer to him. "It's one of my favorite pieces ever."

Bill listened to it for a few moments, and had to admit that it was rather lovely. He didn't usually care for flowery, delicate, classical music, but sometimes, namely now, it was just what he needed.

Pippa was humming along with it, conducting an imaginary orchestra with one of her shoeless feet, and had turned over on the couch so that she could snuggle up next to Bill. He felt one of her arms drape over his side, and he caught her around the middle, kissing her before she could do anything to stop him. When their lips broke apart, Bill felt hers draw into a smile against his, and he couldn't help but peck her again. She let him, and sank down onto the cushions timidly.

"I . . . I've never done this before," she began quietly as Bill propped himself up on top of her. It was almost like she was ashamed to admit it.

"It's all right," he said, kissing down her neck with as much restraint as he could. He felt her tense as his lips moved towards her collarbone, and looked up at her as he wrapped his arms around her slender waist. Her eyes were closed, and she seemed to be holding her breath tentatively. When she realized he'd stopped, she opened her eyes and looked at him nervously.

"I'm a little afraid," Pippa whispered as Bill moved over her again.

"Don't be," he replied, nudging her as he ran his hand down her side, stopping at her hip.

"I . . . I want to go in the bedroom," she said quietly, not meeting his eyes.

"All right," Bill conceded. He scooped her up, which elicited a small squeak, and walked with her to the door of the bedroom. Halfway there, Pippa began to shyly kiss his neck, and it felt so good that he nearly dropped her before he opened the door. She giggled at this, and kept doing it. By the time they reached the bed, they were both kissing each other passionately, and it was all they could do to wait until the sheets were kicked aside for their actions to escalate.

"Do you love me?" Bill managed to ask her breathlessly, while she toyed with the buttons on his shirt.

"Yes," she whispered, swiftly pecking him on the cheek. "You love me, right?"

"Of course," he replied, pulling her closer while she wound her arms around him. "But I don't think you know how much."

"I guess you'll have to fix that then," Pippa said quietly, letting him move over top of her while she lay back on the pillows. Bill looked at her, and after a particularly long and hungry kiss, he said,

"Yeah, I guess I will."

Bill couldn't remember having a better night. He and Pippa stayed awake well into the early morning hours, content to love the other in the most intimate way possible. He knew he would never find someone that he could love that way again, even if he looked for the rest of his life. Pippa was so different than anyone he had ever known, and now that he had her back, he never wanted to let her go.

He told her this as they lay together, whispered it silkily to her as she moaned against him, unable to speak because of how wonderful it felt to be loved like that. She was all that mattered to him know, the only woman he would ever want to have and hold, for better or for worse, in sickness or in health. If they could be together, Bill knew that somehow he'd find a way to make it through even the worst of all possible days.

As they lay together that night, it was Pippa's slow, contented breathing that lulled Bill to sleep. He thought that it was better than any lullaby he'd ever had before, and wished that it could be the only one he'd have for the rest of his life. If he had known that day what he knew all those years later, he would have cherished the experience all the more.

Because it was the only time he ever had it.


	15. The Morning After

**Warnings: **mild language, awkward Weasley family moments

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, just borrowing, will return . . . Except for Pippa. She's mine. And so is Finnegan . . . the cat.

**A/N:** Reviews, pretty please? –shakes tin can full of pennies _really_ hard-

Chapter 15

Bill woke up the next morning to realize that he wasn't wearing any pants, and he surprised himself by being perfectly okay with it.

Pippa was curled up beside him, head tucked at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. Her breathing was slow and peaceful, matching his perfectly. Every time he exhaled, she inhaled, and vice versa. Bill tried to stay absolutely still, so as not to disturb her or ruin the scene.

Finnegan came to visit then. He decidedly detested Bill, and always growled menacingly whenever he caught sight of him. This made for an unpleasant surprise when the giant orange lunk jumped on top of the bed to curl up next to Pippa and saw his least favorite person lying next her. Instead of his usual hissy fit, though, the cat narrowed its eyes and turned back its ears before stalking stiffly to the end of the bed and flopping down, tail twitching in annoyance.

"Same to you, Finnegus," Bill said. The derogatory nickname had stuck, much to Pippa's displeasure.

She stirred at this, and blinked her eyes a few times before looking up at Bill tiredly. She wasn't dressed either, but had smartly pulled the covers up to her chin, whereas Bill was only covered to the waist.

"Are you bad-mouthing my cat?" she asked groggily, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

"Yes."

Finnegan perked up at the sound of Pippa's voice, and walked primly across the bed to be with her. As he purred and rubbed against her, she said,

"Well, stop it."

Bill gave the cat a final glare, and then wrapped his arms around Pippa, kissing her gently.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked, even though he knew that neither of them had done much sleeping last night.

"Yeah," she sighed, abandoning her cat-petting venture to snuggle next to him. She buried her face in Bill's hair, which had come loose from the leather string he used to tie it.

They were quiet for a while, each enjoying the company of the other, while Bill tried to caress Pippa and avoid being mauled by the cat as he did so.

"Do you have to work today?" she finally asked, her head still resting on Bill. She had inched closer to him, and was now lying across his chest as he rubbed her back. Finnegan was glaring at both of them, watching Bill's hand with intense dislike, preparing to strike.

"No, it's Saturday," Bill said, trying to wave the cat away. "I don't work on Saturdays."

"Oh," Pippa mused, a wicked grin appearing on her face. "So, theoretically, we could stay like this all day?" She punctuated this sentence with a swift but lingering kiss.

"In theory, yes," Bill answered, and then let out a yelp of pain as Finnegan pounced, sinking his teeth into his hand. He muttered something obscene, and shoved the angry cat off the bed, nursing his now-bleeding finger. "God damn fleabag!"

"He's just playful," Pippa chided, grabbing her wand from beside the bed, and then healing the cut instantly.

"No, he's mental," Bill replied, kissing her in thanks. "The next time Charlie comes, I'm making him take it back."

Pippa rolled her eyes, and after informing Bill that the cat was staying, she flopped down on top of him and refused to move. Admittedly, he wasn't very upset about this, and set to kissing down her neck as she giggled breathlessly. They kept cuddling, or rather, canoodling, for another five minutes, and were well on their way to having sex again when they heard a noise coming from the other room.

Someone was knocking on the apartment door.

"Leave it," Pippa pleaded, pulling imploringly on Bill's shoulders, trying to catch hold of his mouth again. He let her try for a few seconds, but as the knocking became more insistent, he began to get out of bed.

"Bill," she whined, sitting up while clutching the covers around her slender body. "Please?"

Bill threw her an apologetic look, silently cursed his inability to ignore the noise, and leaned across the bed to kiss her cheek. She was not appeased, and he was nearly out of the room when he heard her say snippily,

"If you're going to be rude and leave me here, you might want to at least put some clothes on."

"Right."

It took him a few moments to locate his ratty blue pajama pants; Pippa had actually thrown them quite far last night. He was out the door in a flash after that, hoping that whoever had made him get out of his nice, warm, Pippa-filled bed was someone he would be happy to see.

As he swung the door open, he was met with the sight of his father, who looked just as harassed as he did, though Bill highly doubted it was for the same reason.

" . . . Hello?"

Bill was aware that his greeting sounded like a question. It made his father betray just the smallest hint of a smile, despite his harried appearance.

"Good morning, Bill," Mr. Weasley said pleasantly. "Glad to see you're finally awake . . . Your mother will be along in a minute, then. We've a question for you."

"I don't want to be rude, Dad, but is this important?" Bill said, leaning on the doorframe, drumming his fingers impatiently. It wasn't that he didn't want to see his father; it was that he wanted to see Pippa more.

Mr. Weasley smiled again, and answered,

"Yes, Bill, it is extremely important . . . But wait, where's Pippa? It's so important that she needs to hear it, too."

Bill rolled his eyes, and said shortly,

"She's still sleeping. What is it?"

"Were you two up late last night?" Mr. Weasley asked, still grinning in spite of his attempts to look stern.

Bill blanched, suddenly remembering that his dad had "done the deed" and fathered seven children, and said as evenly as he could,

"Not really. She just had a busy day at work."

Mr. Weasley raised his eyebrow, and said knowingly,

"That is the boldest lie you have ever told me, William Oliver Weasley, and you know it."

"Well, if you're so smart, and know what you think you know about what I did or didn't do, then why are you keeping me from going back and doing it again?" Bill snapped, unintelligible as ever.

"Because you did it to your mother and I," Mr. Weasley said humorlessly.

While Bill fought back a sudden bout of nausea, Mrs. Weasley caught up with her husband, dragging the rest of her brood with her.

"Bill!" she said happily, throwing her arms around her oldest son. Since he was still recovering from his father's sex comment, Bill could only pat her awkwardly on the back. Mrs. Weasley noticed this, and after feeling his forehead, she asked with genuine concern,

"Are you feeling all right?"

"Yeah, mum, I'm fine," he insisted, noticing his siblings then. "But why's everyone here?"

"Didn't your father tell you yet?" she said, looking accusingly at her husband, who managed to keep his face expressionless, but his guilt was obvious. Mrs. Weasley gave him something akin to a death glare, and turned back to her son. "Well, your father was _supposed_ to ask you if you would be able to watch your brothers and sister today. The Ministry needs your father and I, it's some sort of promotion ceremony up in Edinburgh, and our Portkey is set for 9:17."

"Why me?" Bill whined, risking a glance over his mother's shoulder, where he saw his father suppressing a grin. He silently damned him and the overactive Weasley family procreation gene. "Why can't Charlie do it?"

"Charlie isn't responsible enough," his mother said irritably, obviously referring to the still-unforgiven Apparition incident. It became clear to Bill that he was going to be a babysitter whether he wanted to or not.

"All right," he conceded, eyeing up his siblings warily. Most of them, with the glaring exceptions of Fred and George, seemed tired and sleepy, as though they had been hauled from their beds at this unearthly hour against their will. They should be easy to keep track of for a few hours. "How long would they be staying?"

"Well, as we won't be getting back until very late this evening," Mr. Weasley began, his grin somewhat diminished but still annoyingly present. "We thought they could stay the night and we would pick them up tomorrow morning after breakfast."

Even as he silently cursed his father's obvious amusement, Bill found himself agreeing. His mother smiled, and was gone in a flurry of swift kisses to each of her children, calling irritably for her husband, who wished Bill good luck before catching up to his wife. The cracks of their Apparition rang awkwardly in the quiet hall, leaving the seven Weasley children alone.

"Well, come on then," Bill said as he motioned inside the apartment, trying to hide his annoyance at have his siblings dumped on him like this. Charlie, Percy, Ron and Ginny all trudged inside, while Fred and George practically skipped.

"I suspect Mum fed you?" Bill asked.

"Yeah," Ginny answered. "But I'm still hungry."

"Me, too," Ron added timidly.

"Us three and four," Fred and George answered in unison, as they so often did, while Charlie grumbled something about being famished. Percy was the only one who didn't seem to want anything, and settled himself down on the couch with a stack of parchment and one of his schoolbooks.

Bill found it odd that anyone could be hungry after eating something Mum had made, but knew that he'd end up making something for them anyway.

"All right, I just need five minutes to go wake up Pippa, then I'll come out here and get you guys some breakfast."

Charlie looked up, obviously interested and doing a poor job of hiding it.

"Pippa's still sleeping?" he said, trying to be casual. "Why?"

"Because that's what people do when they're tired," Bill snapped, but then said with a forced calm, "Sorry . . . Could you watch this lot while I get her?"

Charlie shrugged indifferently, and sat down in Bill's chair by the TV, putting his feet on the glass coffee table even though he knew he shouldn't. Sensing that any further reasoning would be lost on his younger brother, Bill groaned and stalked off to the bedroom after warning his other siblings to behave until he came back out.

Pippa was sitting up in bed, covers still drawn around her, an amused look on her face.

"I heard voices," she said, and Bill crossed the room to sit beside her. "It sounded like your family . . . Who all's here?"

"Everyone but Mum and Dad," Bill answered. "They had some weird work thing, or so Dad claims . . . Ministry function my arse, probably just trying to get-"

Pippa shushed him, and he quieted obediently.

"So you're saying that I should get up and dressed now?" she said, idly walking her fingers up and down Bill's arm. He nodded apologetically.

"I would have wanted to stay in-" he began, but Pippa quieted him again.

"It's no problem, Billykins," she said, swinging her feet over the side of the bed and crossing to the dresser.

"Don't call me _that_ in front of them," Bill said urgently. "They'll never let me live it down."

"Oh, is my Billykins embarrassed about his nickname?" Pippa said in a high-pitched voice as she pulled on a pair of faded blue jeans.

"Shhh!" he insisted. Pippa smiled vindictively, but stayed quiet, finding and putting on a bright pink shirt.

"Is Charlie here?" she asked mildly, running a brush through her hair and sweeping it up into a tidy ponytail.

"Yeah," Bill answered, deciding to get dressed as well and looking around for his jeans. "I think he's still mad."

Pippa gave him a "no-shit" sort of look, which was rather amusing because she was halfway through whisking some eyeliner under her eyes, and only one of them was finished.

"I'll apologize," she said matter-of-factly, putting away her make-up and heading to the door.

"They want food, so I'm going to get that then," Bill called after her. He cast his eyes around for a shirt that was clean enough to wear. Finding one, he pulled it on and followed Pippa out into the living room.

She was sitting on the arm of Charlie's chair, saying something to him quietly that seemed to be making him happy, because he was smiling as she said it. Bill rolled his eyes, knowing his brother was probably finding innuendo in whatever she was saying, and walked across the apartment to start the enormous task of making breakfast for his family.

Ron and Ginny were sitting at the stools in front of the counter, amusing themselves by spinning around on them and trying to kick the other's legs. Fred and George were crouched suspiciously behind the chairs in the dining room, and Bill made a mental note to keep an eye on them. Percy hadn't moved from the couch, but kept throwing disgusted looks towards Pippa and Charlie, who were now laughing openly and obviously interrupting his big, important thoughts.

"What do you guys want to eat?" Bill asked Ron and Ginny, who were the closest to him right then.

"Pancakes," Ginny said.

"Eggs," said Ron.

"Bacon," Fred and George called from the dining room.

"Steak," Charlie said.

Pippa laughed, and got up from her perch and flitted over to Bill.

"Do you need help?" she asked, wrapping her arms around his middle, placing a quick kiss on his neck. Charlie, who had followed her to the counter and taken the only empty chair there, made a retching sound that made Ron and Ginny laugh.

"Yeah, I think I will," Bill answered his girlfriend, then turned to Charlie and said sharply, "Could we act like we've matured past the age of seven, please?"

"Bill, ease up a little," Pippa chided, pulling out every frying pan they owned. Suddenly, she stopped fluttering around the kitchen and eyed him critically. "You wore that shirt yesterday," she said disdainfully.

"So?" he answered, retrieving the eggs from the refrigerator. "It's still clean. I didn't roll in the mud or anything."

"So!" Pippa repeated incredulously. "You wore it yesterday, and now that I noticed, it's going to bug me all day!"

"I don't care."

"Bill!"

"Look, Pippa," Bill said, waving a newly located spatula in her face. "If it bugs you that much, I'll just take the damn thing off."

"Please don't," Charlie said.

"Language!" Ginny shrieked gleefully, and Bill cursed again at letting the word slip. Charlie gave a hearty guffaw at this, but was silenced by a glare from his older brother.

"Don't repeat that around Mum," he said quickly, and Ginny nodded.

"Can I help?" she asked earnestly, eyeing the pancake batter Pippa had started to mix after Bill went on his swearing tirade.

"Yeah, sure," Bill said, and Ginny grinned. She began stirring the bowl of batter Pippa passed to her, getting great gobs of it on the counter and leaving very little for cooking.

Charlie sat back and watched everything with a slightly amused sort of look, and then said,

"Why are you guys doing everything the Muggle way? You're both of age, right?"

"Well, Charlie, the last time I cooked anything with magic, I had to redo my kitchen," Pippa said. "So I pretty much do it this way now. It takes longer, but it's cheaper."

Bill didn't answer; he was scrambling eggs and keeping an eye on the bacon at the same time. Between himself and Pippa, they made enough to feed a small army, which was essentially what the Weasley family was. Percy did eat a little, having finished his homework, and admitted that Pippa's cooking was nearly as good as his mother's, though he did it grudgingly.

Pippa cleaned up the dishes after breakfast, and Bill led everyone into the living room, where he turned on the television, setting it to a channel that had Muggle cartoons. Fred and George, who had insisted on eating breakfast in their makeshift fort in the dining room, were enthralled by the moving pictures and watched with intense concentration.

"I don't like the idea of the twins watching people drop anvils on each other," Bill said to Pippa as he went back to the kitchen to help clean up. "It doesn't bode well for any of us."

Pippa smiled, elbow-deep in dishes, and replied,

"It could be worse. They could be watching that _adult_ cartoon channel."

"True," Bill conceded, clearing away the plates from the counter.

"Would they even get those jokes, though?" she asked, scrubbing at some stubborn bacon grease before giving up and Scourgifying it. Bill looked at her disbelievingly.

"Pippa, they live at my house," he said bluntly. "I found out where babies came from when Percy came along . . . Trust me, they'd understand."

She laughed, and began to put away the newly cleaned dishes and pans. Bill gave her a quick kiss, and went back to the living room to make sure no one was breaking anything. He found that Fred and George were still watching cartoons, as were Ginny and Ron, but Percy had abandoned it and was sitting on the couch, looking grumpy.

"What's wrong?" Bill asked him, sitting beside his younger brother. Percy looked at him and said contemptuously,

"This show is stupid. It doesn't make any sense."

"That's why it's funny," Bill said, finding it odd that he would have to explain the point of cartoons to someone in his family.

Percy scoffed, and replied,

"Well I don't like it . . . Do you have any books?" Bill sighed, and pointed to the bookcase.

"Tons. Stay away from the flowery looking ones, though. Those are Pippa's."

As if on cue, Pippa came out of the kitchen and said,

"Why are we talking about my books?"

"I'm telling my younger brother to stay away from them," Bill explained. Pippa smirked, gave a fake-sounding laugh, then turned to Percy and said,

"You look like a _Lord of the Rings_ fan."

"A what?" he asked, while Bill couldn't stifle his smirk.

"A _Lord of the Rings_ fan," Pippa repeated, moving to the bookshelf and pulling out a monstrous red leather-bound book. "You can read this if you'd like, it's one of my favorites."

"What's it about?" Percy asked earnestly, taking the huge book enthusiastically. Bill doubted that his younger brother wouldn't even care if the storyline involved the adventures of a dancing scone, any book that big would certainly be worth his time.

"Read it and find out," Pippa replied, happy that she had managed to introduce someone else to the realm of Middle Earth. If she had her way, everyone would be fluent in Elvish, and would quote Tolkien's masterpiece in everyday conversation. Percy scampered off to the couch again, nose already buried in the introduction, "Concerning Hobbits."

"Pull up a chair, Pippa," Bill said, patting the space beside him. She sat down, curling up next to him and tuned her attention to the cartoons.

"Well, no wonder Percy didn't like these," she said after a few seconds. "These _are_ the stupid ones. All the good ones are on _this_ channel." With that, she picked up the remote and flicked a few channels forward. Fred, George, Ron and Ginny all let out mumbled protests, but quieted when they saw a giant grey rabbit and a smart-mouthed duck arguing. "You've gotta love the classics," Pippa said knowingly.

"Oh, are these the 'old-school' cartoons you told me about?" Bill retorted. Pippa gave him another incredulous glare, and said disdainfully,

"Don't ever let me hear you say 'old-school' again, Bill, or I'll jinx your mouth shut."

"You wouldn't," Bill said smugly. "You love me and my-"

"Keep it clean," she cut in hurriedly, glancing worriedly at Ron and Ginny, who seemed the most innocent of the bunch. "I don't want your parents to pick up a bunch of dirty-minded delinquents."

"Clean?" Charlie repeated. He had been eavesdropping quietly until now. "Who are you worried about spoiling, the cat?" He gestured to Finnegan, who was perched on the arm of his chair, purring loudly.

"Yeah, anyway," Bill added, taking his brother's side. "I already told you, everyone in my family knows about sex."

Pippa turned red and shushed Bill, still looking worriedly at his youngest siblings. Ron and Ginny, however, seemed utterly fascinated by the TV, and weren't listening to their older brothers at all.

"That doesn't mean you have to corrupt them more!" she hissed. Both Weasley boys rolled their eyes, and Charlie called out to his younger sister,

"Hey, Ginny?"

"Yeah?" she said distractedly, laughing at the escalating antics of the bunny on the TV.

"Where do babies come from?"

"Mummies and daddies," she said blandly, now chuckling at the duck, whose bill was turned around to the back of his head. "And sex."

"See?" Charlie said, turning back to Pippa, who was astounded at the child's blunt phrasing. "No worries."

"Well . . . You should still keep it clean," she said, clearly annoyed.

"Pippa, when have I ever _not_ kept it clean?" Bill asked, and ducked just in time to avoid being hit by a pillow. It sailed across the room, landed in Fred and George's chair-fort, and wasn't seen for days.

"You're so dumb!" Pippa said exasperatedly. Both Weasleys laughed, and she slumped beside Bill in a huff, muttering about how she always ended up liking the stupid ones.

The rest of the day passed without much ado. Ron was entertained by the cartoons for most of the morning, and by the trashy soap operas in the afternoon. It took Percy all day to read the first half of the Fellowship of the Ring, and he begged Pippa to stay up late to finish the book. Fred and George stayed in their chair-fort well into the afternoon, shooting bits of dirt and dust at anyone who walked by, until Pippa called them out for dinner. Charlie followed Pippa around all day, much to Bill's displeasure, but she constantly chided him for being so possessive.

As the day progressed, though, Bill found himself seeing a side of Pippa he had never seen before: her maternal side. While he knew from experience that she could be the bitchiest woman ever, he'd had no idea that she could also be the sweetest, most caring and compassionate person in the world. When Fred and George "accidentally" gave Ron a huge welt via a dust bunny, it was Pippa who comforted him and gave him that magical healing "mother's kiss." It was also Pippa who kept everyone entertained through out the course of the day, and she who prevented untold numbers of unprovoked sibling death matches.

As Bill took all this in, he made a very conscious decision: he was going to spend the rest of his life with this woman, and no one in the entire world was going to be able to do anything to stop him.


	16. Last Days

**Warnings:** very bad language and implied violence (that means blood) towards the end

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, just borrowing, and all that jazz.

**A/N:** Third to last chapter! These should come pretty quick now, since I have most of 17 done already.

Reviews and comments are definitely welcome.

Chapter 16

One week.

One glorious, sunshine filled week.

That was all the time Bill and Pippa had together after the day they babysat the younger Weasleys. They spent it entirely in the other's company, laughing and joking and completely in love. They decided they would get married, honeymoon in Rome, and then move to the English countryside to raise a family that would put Bill's to shame. They were going to grow old together, and end up sitting on the front porch of their house in matching rocking chairs, arguing about whose turn it was to feed Finnegan.

They thought they had all the time in the world.

* * *

A day or two after the Weasleys went home, Pippa came back from one of her now-routine shopping sprees with an old Muggle camera, the kind that spat the picture out so it could develop in the air. Bill thought it was odd that she would buy something like that, especially since she hated having her picture taken outside of work, but then he realized that Pippa had never really been "normal."

He crept up on her the next morning, Muggle camera in hand, and a devious plan in mind. She didn't hear him, being too busy fixing her hair and washing her face. Bill tapped her leather-clad shoulder (she had nicked his jacket after whining about being cold), and said,

"Smile!"

Pippa turned around, looking both annoyed and amused, and tried to shield her face from the brightness of the flash.

It didn't work.

"Ha!" Bill said victoriously, taking the picture out of the camera. "Now I have proof!"

"Proof of what?" Pippa asked, blushing and not near as angry as Bill thought she'd be.

"Proof that you're not perfect all the time," he replied, showing her the small plastic square, which was slowly beginning to reveal the snapshot of her a few seconds prior.

Pippa rolled her eyes, but held out her hand, saying,

"Here, I'll autograph it for you."

Bill laughed, and she snatched up the photo before going to her make-up box, pulling out the most obnoxious shade of pink lipstick she could find. She whisked some on her lips, and then pressed them to the back of the picture, being sure to make an exaggerated smack as she did so. Finally, she grabbed a pen from her dresser and scrawled something on the back of the photo.

She handed it to Bill again, looking very pleased with herself. He glanced down, and couldn't help but smile at what she'd written:

I love you.

In place of the word "love," though, was her vibrantly pink lipstick mark. Under that was her messiest signature ever, all the i's in her name dotted with hearts.

"Keep that. It'll be worth millions one day," she said casually, turning back to the mirror and continuing to put her make-up on as though nothing had happened.

Bill smiled, and as he tucked the picture in his pocket, he said,

"Thanks, Pip. I'll treasure it forever."

* * *

The Friday of that week was the day Bill decided he was going to propose to Pippa. He was sitting at his desk at Gringotts, whiling away the last half hour of his workday by idly doodling on a scrap of parchment. It looked to the goblins and his bosses like he was working hard, and was just amusing enough to occupy him until his shift ended. He used to throw his quills at the ceiling to see if they would stick, but after only a week of this, the goblins had an Imperturbable Charm placed on it, and he had to find a less destructive way to waste time.

Slowly but surely, the clock on the wall inched its way towards 5:00, and at 5:02, Bill was already hurrying down the bustling street two blocks down from his apartment building. He always Apparated to and from work, and today was no different in that respect.

Instead of turning right and heading down Hackney Street, however, Bill went left and made his way purposefully towards a jewelry store he often passed when he and Pippa went out for lunch. It was called Avondale's, and Bill knew it was a Wizarding store because they had the exchange rates for pounds sterling to Galleons posted in the window. He suspected it had been made invisible to Muggles somehow, because none of the other residents seemed to be paying any attention to it.

As he pushed open the heavy wooden door, a small bell rang from somewhere inside the cavernous store. The walls glittered and sparkled with an amazing array of gemstone-encrusted jewelry, and Bill had no idea where he should even look for an engagement ring.

Luckily, there was someone available to help him, presumably the owner, who swished up in a set of royal blue robes and began asking Bill all sorts of questions: What was the occasion? Did he want something bold or something delicate? Was price an important factor?

"No," Bill answered the last one quite certainly. It didn't matter what the ring cost, just as long as it was perfect.

The owner smiled, and led him to a long row at the back of the store, filled to the hilt with georgous rings of all sizes. It didn't take Bill more than a minute to pick one out. It was a simple gold band with a single diamond, nothing too flashy or gaudy. It was very classic and timeless, and he knew that Pippa would love it.

Bill paid in full, and put the small velvet box in the pocket of his jacket as he left the store. As he strode purposefully towards his apartment, he couldn't have felt any more contented. The sun was beginning to set, scorching the sky behind the blackened silhouettes of skyscrapers, and he found it beautiful.

There was nothing wrong with the world at this moment in time. He was going to propose to the woman of his dreams, and then they were going to get married and have the kind of life that everyone longed for but very few people actually got.

As he opened the door, Bill felt that there was nothing in the entire world that could possibly ruin his day.

He was, unfortunately, proven wrong.

* * *

"You!" Bill yelled, completely at a loss for anything else to say.

"Yes, we've established that I am here, Weasley. Is there anything else?"

Mr. X was standing casually in the hallway, like he owned the place. The second Bill had walked in and seen him, he felt his heart drop from his throat to his feet. Mr. X's presence at his apartment couldn't mean anything good.

"Yeah!" Bill groped around his mind blindly, trying to remember how to speak English. Mr. X grinned icily. "What . . . What the hell are you doing here?"

"I really don't think you want to know that, Weasley," Mr. X said calmly, examining his hands boredly, as though he and Bill were discussing the weather.

"What the hell do you mean?" Bill shouted, taking another step inside his apartment. "Of course I want to know, that's why I-"

"Perhaps I should rephrase that," Mr. X cut in. "There are other things I believe you would like to know more than 'what'."

Bill stared blankly, and X prompted,

"Things like why . . . and who for . . . "

Bill's heart stopped.

Pippa.

"What did you do to her?" Bill shouted, striding forward and taking a swing at Mr. X, who avoided it easily by sidestepping into the kitchen.

"I believe if you look behind me, you'll find a little hint," he said, his voice so eerily cool and collected. Bill shoved the man aside, and nearly vomited.

The wall, which was usually pristinely white, was splattered with something thick and crimson.

Blood.

"What the fuck did you do to her?" he shouted hoarsely, taking a hold of Mr. X by the collar and shaking him violently. "Where the hell is she?"

Mr. X, far from being upset, simply pulled Bill's hands away from his shirt, and only after carefully smoothing out the wrinkles did he reply,

"You needn't worry. She's taken care of."

"What the fuck do you mean by that?" Bill demanded, feeling nauseous. He doubted that the amount of blood on the wall left enough inside Pippa's body for her to be all right. "Where is she?"

"She's at St. Mary's," Mr. X said breezily, lighting up a cigar he had withdrawn from his pocket.

"St. Mary's?" Bill repeated, non-pulsed. "The god damn _Muggle_ hospital?"

The smile that haunted X's face sent chills down Bill's spine.

"Like I said," he replied calmly, savoring a long pull from his cigar. "She's taken care of."


	17. Good Bye

**Warnings:** character death, bad language

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, just borrowing

**A/N:** Second to last chapter! I stuck Dr. House in here because he freaking rocks . . . And to lighten the mood just a little bit.

Chapter 17

Bill raced down the streets of London, trying to keep his mind blank. He couldn't bear the thoughts that whipped through his head, and the image of the blood splattered wall in his apartment refused to leave. Fear was the thing that kept him running.

He found St. Mary's by chance. All he knew was that it was the only Muggle hospital near his apartment, and that he'd heard Pippa mention in once or twice in passing. It looked cold and unwelcoming at best, but Bill shoved through the doors anyway. All he cared about at that moment was his girlfriend.

The waiting room was crowded with sick and grumpy people, and Bill shoved his way to the desk and slammed his fist on it to get the nurse's attention. He decided everyone else would just have to wait.

"I need to know-" he began, but before he could finish the nurse handed him a clipboard with some official looking papers.

"Fill this out and then come talk to me," she said dismissively. Bill shoved the clipboard back.

"I don't need any papers," he said exasperatedly. "I need to find my girlfriend!"

"No, you need to fill out these forms," the nurse repeated, as though she was talking to a three year old. "Then, we'll be able to help you."

"What the hell are the forms going to do?" Bill shouted. He knew that he was making a spectacle of himself, but he didn't care. "My girlfriend is dying, and you want me to just sit down and write my name on a bunch of worthless papers? Like that's going to make her any better? I need to see her!"

Why didn't anyone understand that? This was a hospital, right? They were supposed to save people here, and take care of people, right? Why was everyone being so difficult?

The nurse gave him a glare, and said irritably,

"That's right, sir. You're the only one in this hospital who has a loved one in trouble. We should all just drop everything and help you."

"Don't give me that shit," Bill hissed, leaning over the desk menacingly. He was through being polite, and he was through waiting for everyone else to help him. He wanted to see Pippa, and if using force was the only way to make that happen, the so be it. "I know you know where she is, and if you don't tell me, I'll-"

Someone stopped him here, and Bill whirled around to see who it was. A grouchy looking old man with a craggy face had put his hand on Bill's shoulder, and was now giving him an annoyed sort of look.

"What?" Bill demanded. The man wasn't wearing a white coat, so he assumed he wasn't a doctor.

"Would you mind keeping it down?" the man said, leaning heavily on the cane he carried. "You're bothering the other sickies."

"I'm not sick!" Bill said angrily. "I need to see my girlfriend, for God's sake!"

"Are you blind?" the man asked.

"No. What the hell sort of question-"

"Then seeing her shouldn't be a problem. Keep it down."

Bill had no idea what kept him from hitting the old man then and there, but he was grateful for it later.

At that moment, a dark haired doctor appeared at the craggy man's side, looking upset and a little mad. The name on his lab jacket said "Wilson."

"House, what are you doing?" he demanded of the older man. House leaned on his cane again, and sad breezily,

"What does it look like I'm doing? Clinic duty."

Dr. Wilson rolled his eyes, and then looked over at Bill, who was still fuming mad and lacking the answers he'd come here for.

"And what is your problem?" Wilson asked.

"For the hundredth time, I'm here to see my girlfriend!" Bill shouted. He knew he shouldn't yell, seeing as this was the only person who had offered to help since he'd arrived, but it made him feel better.

"Well, do you know where she is?" Dr. Wilson asked. House had already limped away, and was being bothered by an elderly lady at the other end of the waiting room.

"No!" Bill said. "I have no idea where she is. All I know is she's somewhere in this hospital, and that she would have got here about twenty minutes ago in really bad shape . . . Her name's Pippa Fitzpatrick, if that helps."

Dr. Wilson seemed to take pity on Bill then, and told him to come with him. He led Bill down a dozen different hallways and up three separate flights of stairs. Bill lost track of where he was in the hospital, but sensed that he was finally going to find Pippa.

"She's in here," Dr. Wilson said resignedly. They were standing outside door number C15. It was at the end of a long, quiet hallway, and all the other doors were shut fast against the outside world as well. "She doesn't have much time. The medics did what they could, but . . . There's no cure for a gunshot to the stomach. "

Bill didn't hear any of Wilson's explanation. He'd already shoved his way through the door and gone to Pippa, hoping against everything that she would be all right.

"What? . . . What happened?" he asked uncertainly, rushing to her hospital bed and sitting down next to her. She was hooked up to a bunch of different electrical boxes, all of which were beeping and whooshing. She looked up tiredly when Bill came in, and smiled weakly when she recognized who it was.

"Mr. X," Pippa answered quietly. "He shot me."

She looked away, and Bill couldn't quite remember how to breathe. Faintly, he heard the door close and the clack of Dr. Wilson's heels as he walked down the hallway.

"But you'll be okay?" Bill finally managed to ask. "You'll get better, right?"

Pippa smiled sadly, and shook her head as she said slowly,

"No, I won't. There's nothing the doctors can do."

"But if we got you to St. Mungo's," he said wildly, grabbing for imaginary shreds of hope. "They could . . . maybe . . . "

"No," she said weakly. "Even if they _could_ do something, how would I get there? There's no way anyone here would move me in my condition."

They were both silent. Bill hung his head in his hands, and Pippa stared absently at her heart monitor, watching the thin green line bounce up and down. After a while, Bill reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the small velvet box he purchased less than an hour ago.

It was an hour that now seemed to span a lifetime. It reached back to a time when he and Pippa had their entire lives ahead of them, when the best and brightest things the world had to offer had been within their grasp, just waiting to be taken. Bill didn't know how to accept that fact that at one precise moment in that short hour, their dream had been destroyed, and that the rest of the beautiful life they had planned had to be lived out in a matter of minutes, a mere travesty of what they had hoped for.

It was such a farcical end to the greatest story that would never happen.

"I have a question for you," he began quietly, hoping to salvage the tiniest bit of that dream. Pippa turned her head and regarded him mildly. As he opened the box, he heard her sharp, undoubtedly painful, gasp when she saw what was inside.

"Will you marry me?"

"Bill! . . . " Pippa stammered, tears running down her cheeks. "Are you . . . "

"Please?" he insisted. "I mean, I know we don't have long, but . . . " He couldn't go on.

Pippa nodded, quite incapable of speaking, and held out her hand expectantly. Bill felt it trembling as he slipped the diamond ring onto her finger, but couldn't tell if it was from her excitement or her waning strength.

"I love you," he said simply, kissing her now bejeweled hand. "And I always will."

"Bill," Pippa sighed, desperately clutching his hand in her own, as though by doing this she would keep herself from dying. "I . . . I love you, too."

He reached out and brushed a stray bit of hair off her forehead. She leaned into his touch, and closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed, and she could only sigh every few moments, just to let him know she was still there.

The blips from the heart monitor became slower and less frequent.

"Bill," Pippa whispered, her voice thin. "I'm afraid . . . I don't want to go yet, please . . . There's so much I still have to do . . . " She made to sit up, but the pain was too much. Bill settled her, and said softly,

"Shh, you don't need to be afraid. I'm here, and I'm not going to leave you. Everything will be all right."

"Bill," she moaned hoarsely, her eyes welling up. "It hurts so much . . . "

"Then let's think about something else," Bill said quickly, choking back tears of his own. "Our wedding, let's think about that!"

"Bill . . . " Pippa pleaded.

"No, really! What will you wear then? That white silk gown you had at the photo shoot yesterday would be lovely . . . "

Pippa closed her eyes, and after a few moments, nodded.

"You . . . You should wear blue," she whispered, the faintest trace of a smile on her face.

"Yes, of course," Bill said eagerly, hoping to take her mind off the pain as long as he could. "I'll wear dark blue, and you'll wear white . . . And they'll play that canon you like so much as you walk down the aisle, just like you wanted . . . It'll be lovely, really."

"Play it at my funeral," Pippa murmured, still gripping Bill's hand, though she was becoming weaker with each passing second.

"Of . . . of course," Bill said, unable to stem the tears any longer. He brushed his thumb across her cheek, drying it for a few seconds until more tears came. "And . . . And what are we going to name our kids?"

" . . . Liam . . . "

"Liam, yes, and . . . Emily! What do you think about Emily?"

Pippa couldn't speak anymore, but nodded her approval. Bill kept going, as much for himself as for her.

"Yes, Liam and Emily, two beautiful children . . . You'll be a Weasley, though, so you'll need more than that . . . "

Pippa tried to laugh, but it was cut short by a wave of pain. Her hand jerked to her stomach, where the wound was bleeding anew, but she was so weak that she couldn't move. Instead, she gripped Bill's hand harder, and bit her lip against the pain until the tremors stopped.

Bill held her close, and whispered over and over again that he was sorry. He didn't know what he was apologizing for, but he felt that he needed to; that somehow, this whole situation was his fault.

If only he had gotten here sooner . . .

If only that nurse hadn't held him up in the waiting room . . .

If only he could have stopped X . . .

"Bill," Pippa gasped, and he stopped his stream of apologies to look up at her. "Don't be sorry . . . Meeting you . . . meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I just . . . I just wanted you to know that."

She tried to put her hand to Bill's face, but her strength was gone. As her hand fell back to the bed, Bill caught it and brought it to his cheek for her. Her fingers curled around a stray piece of his hair, and she smiled weakly as Bill kissed her wrist.

"Bill," she began, so soft that it was barely audible, "I love you, don't ever doubt that . . . "

"I love you, too," Bill said hoarsely, drawing her closer still and stroking her hair gently. He knew the time they had together was short, minutes only, and as he felt precious seconds slipping away, like sand between his fingers, he hated himself for his inability to do anything about it. "I'll only ever love you-"

"No," Pippa said as strongly as she could. Her voice was little more than a whisper. "No, Bill. You're too good for me to keep all to myself . . . And if you're in love with a . . . a dead person, you know what that makes you?"

"What?"

"A necrophiliac."

Bill laughed, but he was well aware of how forced and hollow it sounded.

Pippa could only smile faintly, but she continued,

"Don't waste away, Bill . . . You deserve to be happy, and I want you to find someone after I'm . . . gone . . . There'll be someone out there for you, Bill . . . You just have to look . . . "

Here, she gulped, gasped, and gripped harder on Bill's hand. He could hear her moaning that she was afraid, that it wasn't her time, and begging God to let her stay.

They both knew they had only a few moments left together.

"I'm glad you came," Pippa murmured, leaning her head onto his shoulder because she was too weak to hold it up anymore. " . . . Glad I got to see you one last time . . . "

"Of course I came back," Bill said earnestly, holding her against him as he felt her body relax. She managed to turn her eyes to his face one last time.

"I love you, Bill," she whispered, and then she was gone.

* * *

**EDIT 3-12-07:** Fixed a few errant typos, and fleshed it out a little more. I hate updating at night. -grumpy face- 


	18. Resolved

**Warnings:** bad language, the end

**Disclaimer:** Just borrowing from JKR and whoever owns House

**A/N:** Well ya'll, it's been real. I'd like to thank everyone who has read, and reviewed. It means a lot to me. I'm considering an epilogue.

I might be doing a sequel. You should expect a bunch of oneshots at the very least.

Reviews and comments are, of course, lusted after.

Chapter 18

Dr. House stood at the end of the hall, talking to a group of fellow doctors, most of who looked bewildered and slightly annoyed. Watching them gave Bill an opportunity to take his mind off what had just happened . . . Or at least try to.

Pippa was dead.

The fact that there was nothing he could do to change this hurt more than knowing that he would never see her again.

As Bill sat across the hall from Pippa's room, Dr. House came limping towards him, having finished his sermon with his colleagues. He had nearly gone past when Bill said quietly,

"Pippa's died."

"What?"

Dr. House rounded on him with agility no one thought he could have.

"Pippa Fitzpatrick," he repeated tonelessly, gesturing to her room. "The woman in there. She's died."

"And when were you planning on tell anyone about this?" Dr. House said angrily. He shook his cane at the redhead and continued, "Were you just going to leave her in there, hoping someone would notice? Have an orderly come by a few days from now, wondering what the awful smell was?"

Bill didn't reply, though this remark would have otherwise incensed him. Now that Pippa was gone, he simply didn't care anymore.

Someone else did, though. A dark-haired female doctor came swishing down the hall, angrily addressing Dr. House.

"Leave the man be!" she snapped. "He's just been through a hell of an ordeal!" Dr. House gave her a bemused sort of look, and limped away, mumbling sullenly to himself about the lunatics that frequented his hospital. The female doctor glared after him, and then sat gently on the chair beside Bill.

"I apologize for him," she said softly.

"It doesn't matter," he replied hollowly. He glanced at the woman's nametag on her coat. It read "Cameron." Bill didn't know if that was her first or last name, but didn't want to ask which it was.

"House can be a little arrogant sometimes," she was saying. "He seems to forget that just because he has no emotion other than indifferent doesn't mean we all have . . . Did you know her, the girl in the room?"

"Yeah," Bill said. He was absently toying with the empty jewelry box, turning it over and over in his hands. "She was my fiancé."

Cameron's hand flew to her mouth, and she made that small sound people make when they want to say something consoling but can't find the words. It annoyed Bill, but he didn't care enough to say anything in response. She put her hand on his shoulder, and he found it oddly comforting, as if she too had lost someone she loved, and knew what he needed.

He still didn't care, though. As Bill watched Dr. Cameron leave the couch and swish away down the hall, he doubted that he would ever feel anything again.

And, for the second time that day, he was proven wrong by his least favorite person in the entire world.

"You!" he growled, standing and pointing accusingly at the dark-suited, broad-shouldered man. The angry lion that had lain dormant in his chest since he'd realized Pippa was going to die woke, and roared loader than ever. He couldn't believe that man would have the gall to come here, to try to see her after what he had done. "You . . . bastard! You did this to her!"

Dr. Cameron turned around angrily, thinking that Bill was yelling at her, but quickly saw where he was pointing.

"I have no idea what you are talking about, Weasley," Mr. X said calmly, striding down the hall. "I came here because I heard my friend had been brought here. Is that right, Dr . . . Cameron?" His eyes found the nametag on her coat, but it was obvious he had originally looked there for another reason.

"Who . . . Who is your friend?" she asked uncertainly. The redhead's sudden change worried her.

"A Miss Fitzpatrick," Mr. X said, trying his best to sound concerned. Dr. Cameron began to answer, but Bill cut her off.

"No, you jackass, she's not okay! You fucking killed her, you son of a bitch!"

"Sir!" Dr. Cameron said, aghast at his language, but Mr. X gave such a look of bewilderment that he nearly fooled Bill.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Yes you do, you bastard!" Bill began another explicative-laced tirade, but Dr. House came limping back down the hall, and shoved him aside.

"I'm only going to say this once more," he said. "Keep it down. You're bothering the other sickies."

"I don't care!" Bill replied. "This man killed Pippa, and I want him out of this hospital!"

"I object!" Mr. X said, sounding slightly discontented. The doctors seemed ready to take Weasley's side, and if the accusations continued, he might be found out. "I have just as much right to see her as you do!"

"No you don't!" he shouted, thinking and speaking faster than he ever had before. "I'm her next of kin, her fiancé, and I don't want you to see her! I want you to get the hell out of this hospital, and never come anywhere near me again! If you do, I swear to God I'll kill you!"

The silence that followed stretched on for an eternity, both men eyeing the other wearily while the doctors looked on, confused and helpless. It ended only when a loud screech echoed down the hall, and Bill turned to see his mother racing towards him, arms extended and tears in her eyes.

"Bill!" she cried, grabbing him about the middle and sobbing. "We heard something happened to Pippa! Is she all right? Please tell me she's all right, please!"

The rest of the Weasleys filed in behind her, all sharing the same anxious, worried expression. The younger children, Ron and Ginny, also seemed puzzled, as though they didn't quite understand what was happening.

"No, mum, she isn't," Bill said, still furious at Mr. X. He pointed at her murderer, and said, "That man killed her. She's dead because of this bastard!"

Mrs. Weasley pulled away sharply, hand at her mouth, and buried her face in her husband's chest. Arthur Weasley, for his part, grimaced but kept his face nearly impassive for his wife's sake. Charlie's eyes glinted with something hard and mean as they flashed over Mr. X, taking in the man's seedy appearance and barely concealed smirk.

"Don't throw accusations like that around," House said, finally gathering his wits. "You have no idea what-"

"Don't you tell me what happened! I'm not stupid," Bill said warningly, stepping menacingly into the doctor. "I know what the fuck went on at my apartment. I came home to find this bastard, no girlfriend, and a bloodstained wall. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out."

House said nothing to this, only stared at Mr. X. Dr. Cameron looked close to tears, and excused herself with the excuse of needing to go help someone named Foreman.

"If that's the case, you need to inform the authorities," House said, trying to regain his usual apathetic composure. "There has to be an investigation, and formal documentation-"

Bill didn't hear the rest. All he saw was a flash of red, and the next thing he knew, Charlie had punched Mr. X square in the nose, knocking him to the ground. Blood spilled onto the pristine floor, and Charlie wound up again.

"You fucking bastard!" he shouted, and secretly, Bill was a little jealous that he had let Charlie hit the man first. He certainly wasn't the one who pulled his younger brother away; that was left to his father and Dr. House. Bill hoped the pat he gave his sibling wasn't as noticeable as he thought it was.

"That is enough!" Dr. House said, pushing the redheaded family and the dark haired man to separate sides of the hall. "You, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." He was pointing to Mr. X, who registered anger for a brief moment, but pulled his features back to their usual impassive places. "This man is the girl's fiancé, and that gives him the right to deny you access to the room."

Mr. X looked put out, and after an awkward silence, he stalked down the hallway, warning the Weasleys that this wasn't the last they would see of him.

"Remember what I said, X," Bill replied, arms crossed defiantly over his chest. "Come anywhere near me or my family again, and I'll break your fucking skull."

No one chided his language this time, and he was glad for it. Once X had left, trying all the while to stem the blood flow from his nose, House turned to the Weasleys and said with an unnatural calm,

"You can have a few minutes with the girl, to say your good byes. Just tell the orderly when you're ready to leave."

There was nothing that anyone could say, but they were grateful for the chance.

* * *

The sunlight streaming through the window bathed the end of Bill's bed in a golden glow, and it contrasted starkly to the dismal end of his story.

"I don't really remember the weeks that followed that," he said quietly. Ginny's head was resting on his shoulder while Fleur sat needle-straight beside him, face impassive and unmoved. "They're all blurred together: the funeral, the anger, and everything."

"I remember Charlie saying the only time he ever saw you cry was at her funeral," Ginny offered softly, curling into her brother's lap. "I have to agree with him."

Fleur bristled at this. Bill had never cried for _her_ when something bad happened.

"Nothing mattered anymore, for a long time," Bill continued. "It was all so fresh and so close and so raw. Everything I saw reminded me of her, and it hurt. I just wanted to get out and escape, but there was nowhere to go."

"Eez zat why you went to Egypt?" Fleur asked stiffly. Bill nodded.

"Yeah. A few weeks after the funeral, my boss Mr. Anderson quit, and left me next in line for the Curse Breaker job. I took it, mostly to leave England for a while . . . To get away from all the grief and start over."

Silence visited again, and Bill was the one to break it.

"So now you know," he said simply. "You know about Pippa Marie Fitzpatrick, the only secret I've ever kept from you."

Fleur snorted. She thought that this girl couldn't be the only thing he was hiding, and said as much. Bill looked hurt.

"Why would you even say that?" he asked. "I wouldn't lie to you. Ever."

Ginny was offended, too. While it was true that she had liked Pippa better than she would ever like Fleur, she didn't think the comment was warranted.

"Becuz I know you, Beel Weazley," Fleur said primly. "You 'ave many secrets."

"No I don't," he insisted. "Not with you."

"Well, even if zat iz true, I do not care. You 'id zis from me for too long. I should 'ave known sooner."

Bill looked at her, shocked. Ginny was the one who spoke.

"It's _his_ business, and he doesn't have to share it with anyone he doesn't want to, you cow. You should feel privileged to know."

"Oui, of course," Fleur said sourly, offended by the younger witch's tone. "I should feel 'appy to know zat my fiancé has been sleeping with someone else. Eet is an 'onor."

"Fleur!" Bill said exasperatedly. "It wasn't like that!"

"Do you s'ink I am her?" she asked bluntly. "When we are togezzer, do you see her and not me?"

"No, I see you," Bill answered honestly, taking her hands in his own.

"Prove eet," she said icily.

"All right," he said calmly. "I loved Pippa, and still do. But you know what? I have moved on. I know I will never have her back, and I know that I have found you. I know you love me, and that I love you. There is no one in the entire world that I love more than you . . . Does that do it for you?"

Fleur looked at him appraisingly, while Ginny glared. Here was her brother, spilling his heart out for this woman, and she was flippantly disregarding everything. It was sickening.

"Zat will 'ave to do," the Frenchwoman said finally, and something inside Bill fell away.

He realized now that she knew, Fleur would never look at him the same. She would always wonder whether he meant what he said to her, or if he was just using her to have what he and Pippa never could have. It hurt him to know this, and he just wanted a way to prove that he loved her, Fleur, and not just a shadow of a woman he could never have.

He also knew this would never happen. There was a rift now, a rift that could never be taken away.

But damn it all, Bill would try his hardest until the day he died.


	19. Epilogue

**Warnings:** murder, bad language

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, just borrowing

**A/N:** Okay, I wrote an epilogue. Hope it seems reasonable, like the characters would really do this . . . If not, well, go write your own epilogue.

I'm a big fan of the comeuppance.

-holds sign that reads: Ninjas stole my confidence, need reviews to bolster self-esteem-

Epilogue

_"15 sickles for half a kilogram of dragon liver! What the hell?"_

Looking back on this, the redhead admitted that it was a very "Mom" thing to say. Still, there was nothing he could do to change it, and grudgingly shelled out the coins in exchange for the grimy organ. Brief civilities were exchanged with the shopkeeper, and then the Weasley boy stalked away, muttering about inflation and the dismal state of the economy.

He sat down at a table in front of Florean Fortescue's to wait for the rest of his family. His mother had bullied him into coming along, telling him that he needed to help keep an eye on his younger brothers and sister, but she had then proceeded to haul the whole lot of them off with her, leaving him with no one to watch and nothing to do but the household shopping.

So now, here he was, sitting out in broad daylight with a paper bag of thawing dragon liver and a grumpy disposition.

He sat back to survey the bustling crowds. It was the only way he could while away the time until his mum and dad got back, and was actually quite interesting. He didn't come here as much as he used to, because his work took him far from home. Holidays were the only time he ever got to see his family now, and even then it was a rarity.

As he looked past an attractive witch in a purple robe, pretending not to be interested, he caught sight of something that made his heart stop.

Broad shoulders. A dark suit. Slicked back hair.

The Weasley boy leapt up and was off before he even realized what he was doing. Fighting his way through the throng of merrily unconcerned shoppers, he strained to keep his prey within sight. The sun glinted off the man's hair as he rounded the corner into Knockturn Alley, and his predator hurried to catch up.

As Weasley turned the corner, he nearly ran into the man he was tailing. Catching himself before he fell over completely, the redhead fixed his steely gaze on the man who had ruined everything.

"You . . . " he managed to croak out. Admittedly, it wasn't very menacing or even articulate, but it was he could think of at that moment.

X smiled patronizingly, and said,

"Yes? I assume you've something else to say?"

"Yeah," Weasley replied, regaining his wits quickly. "There is something else."

"Well, hurry it along," X said calmly. "I have places to be, people to see . . . Things to do."

"Oh, like murdering someone else?" the redhead said heatedly, taking a step towards the man. X's face broke into an eerily unhinged grin, and he said,

"I prefer to call it fatal negotiating. Some people just aren't that good at it . . . Like dear Miss Fitzpatrick."

"You fucking bastard!" the Weasley said, losing control and taking a swing at X, who sidestepped it lightly.

"Violence will get you nowhere," he tutted, and then suffered a well-placed blow to the face. He staggered backwards, holding his nose in an attempt to staunch the blood flow there.

"That's high talk coming from you," the redhead spat, enjoying the other man's pain. "Tell me, what did you say to her before you pulled the trigger? What words of comfort did you give before you fucking murdered her? _What the hell did she do to deserve it?_" He punctuated this with another hit, and didn't try to suppress the smile that rose when X landed on the ground with a sickening thump. "At least she didn't cower in a corner somewhere, like you."

X smiled again, more deranged than ever. He still hadn't gotten up, but leered at the man standing over him, and said, almost as though he was reminiscing,

"She begged me not to do it, you know. I had her on her knees, begging me not to pull the trigger . . . I rather liked seeing her, and feel that I must commend you for your excellent taste in women, Weasley."

The redhead kicked at him, landing his foot soundly in the other man's gut. Even as he slumped over in pain, though, X managed to speak again.

"You probably want me to admit that I was wrong, don't you? See the error of my ways, and all that shit. But you know what?"

"What?" the redhead spat, humoring the psychotic man.

"I enjoyed every fucking minute of it," X said, blood now trickling from the corner of his mouth. It took every muscle he possessed to keep the Weasley boy from killing X right then. As the dark-suited man's eyes rolled back in his head, relishing the memory, he continued, "She thought she'd won. Thought she was on top of the world, that little bitch. Planned her whole fucking life out, like she'd get to have everything she wanted after what she did to me, but I showed her . . . I showed her that nothing lasts forever."

"Thank God for small wonders."

The Weasley boy had his wand out before he knew what he was doing, and in the next second, he'd gotten his revenge. It was the only time he had ever used a Forbidden Curse, and the only time he ever would.

X's form slumped over, cold and still, and the redhead couldn't contain his glee.

He pocketed his wand, and walked away, trying his hardest to look inconspicuous. He heard screams coming from behind him, as people discovered the body, but he didn't pause or even look back. No one stopped him, and before he knew it, he was back in the sunlight of Diagon Alley, striding back to his table at Fortescue's.

It was like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. As he greeted his family, all of whom had been concerned to come back to their table and find only a bag of soggy dragon liver, he couldn't keep the smirk from his face. As they walked towards the Leaky Cauldron, Bill leaned over and asked him,

"What are you so smug about? Mum was going spare about you."

"I'll tell you later," Charlie replied, and then added knowingly, "I think it'll make your day."


End file.
